PNP personnel in WV cautioned against enemy attack
Camp Delgado’s top police official has reminded Philippine National Police personnel throughout Western Visayas to be on alert and extra cautious while performing their routine peace-keeping task.
The reminder was issued by Chief Supt. Isagani Cuevas, regional director of the Police Regional Office 6, in the aftermath of an ambush last Wednesday in Barangay Agho, Tubungan, Iloilo that killed Police Officer 3 Julius Leonor, who was assigned at Camp Delgado’s Communication and Electronics Services.
Leonor was on his way home to Barangay Agho on board his service motorcycle when he was attacked by at least 10 suspected rebels.
The PRO-6 regional director revealed that several police stations, particularly those located in the far-flung municipalities in the province of Iloilo, have received threats from the rebel insurgents.
Across Negros island, a ranking police officer and several members of the 6th Regional Mobile Group (6th RMG) were on the hit list for liquidation by the NPA’s Special Partisan Unit (SPARU).
Supt. Remus Zacharias Canieso, director of the 6th RMG based in Victorias City, Negros Occidental, admitted that he cheated death twice in the failed liquidation attempt on his life perpetrated by NPA hitmen in the past.
Foremost of the incident was the ambush last Dec. 3, 2008 in Barangay Estado, Victorias City where a policewoman was killed and four police officers were wounded.
As a precautionary measure, Canieso said the 6th RMG has strengthened its operation against the rebels by mobilizing trainees of the Special Counter-Insurgency Operations Course and the conduct of routine checkpoints in strategic areas to deter enemy plans.
On the other hand, the military authorities also confirmed that the NPA has deployed hit squads in northern Negros eyeing RMG personnel and army soldiers as targets as well as civilians whom they suspected as military informants.
In the latter part of last month, five rebels on test mission shot dead a helpless farmer inside the cockpit in Barangay Camindangan, Sipalay City in southern Negros, on suspicion that the victim was an informant of the military.
The slain farmer, Dominador Mallao, was riddled with bullets and he died on the spot. He was the third civilian victim killed by the rebels in southern Negros since February this year.
Last June 13, an army trooper, Private Gil Cinco of the 62nd Infantry Battalion, shot dead his would-be rebel assassin identified as Michael Tapang, alias Ka Jonas, in the public plaza of Toboso, Negros Occidental.
Maj. Nathaniel Villasor, chief, Civil Military Operations of the 303rd Infantry Brigade, said the NPAs mostly prey on the so-called “soft targets” like soldiers and police officers who are not carrying firearms.
The strategy, he said, is part of the enemy’s tactical offensive to show that they are still the force to reckon with despite the fact that their cadres have started to weaken as scores of their comrades went down from the hills to join the mainstream of the democratic society to avail of the government’s livelihood assistance. (PNA)