NPA disowns slay try on Miag-ao farmer
Communist rebels have denied attacking a farmer in Miag-ao town in Iloilo during the Holy Week and accused the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) of concocting lies as part of their counter-insurgency campaign.
In an e-mailed statement, the New People's Army Napoleon Tumagtang Command claimed they have nothing to do with the shooting and wounding of Jodie Morante Thursday last week. The rebel command operates in the southern towns of Iloilo and parts of Antique province.
Ariston Remus, the spokesperson of the rebel command, said they do not know who Morante is and that he has never been a target of the rebel movement.
"He has no record as a suspected asset of the military. He has also no pending cases before the People's Court, said Remus in a statement in Hiligaynon.
The AFP's Civil Relations Service in Western Visayas presented Morante to reporters early this week as an alleged victim of rebel atrocities.
Morante, 47, and a resident of Barangay Ticdalan in Miag-ao said he was attacked by around 10 NPA rebels wearing fatigue uniforms. He was wounded on his left arm and suffered bruises after he claimed to have jumped over a ravine to evade his who fired at him with M-16 rifles.
The farmer said he was attacked after he failed to give in to the rebels' demand to give rice from a half sack to a sack every month along with vegetables and chicken.
But Remus said no NPA unit was operating in the area when Morante was attacked. He said if there were armed persons in the area at that time, these could have been members of the breakaway Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), bandits or operatives of the AFP pretending to be NPA members.
In denying the attack against Morante, Remus said they always own up to their operations. He cited their offensives against and clashes with government troops in Barangay Tigbanaba in Igbaras, Iloilo on Dec. 4 and 5 last year and the ambush of soldiers in Sitio Sarawagan, Barangay Tubudan in San Remigio in Antique on April 2.
"The AFP has kept hidden their casualties in these offensives even if many residents have witnesses these," said Remus in the statement.
Remus said Morante is "being used by the military in their dirty psy-war scheme to deceive the people of Miag-ao and Panay."