San Remigio ambush part of CPP directive to step up offensives vs gov't troops
The recoveries at the ambush site: empty shells of
12 gauge shotgun, M-16, M-14 fifles and parapher-
nalia for making improvised landmines.
The recent ambush in San Remigio, Antique which killed 2 soldiers and wounded two others could be part of the directive of the Communist Party of the Philippines' Central Committee (CPP) for the New People's Army (NPA) to step up its offensives against government troops following its 39thfounding anniversary on March 29.
The attack which came six days after the NPA anniversary killed Corporal Francisco Silvila and Private First Class (PFC) Joey Yntas while PFCs Arthur Azarcon and Rodolfo Domopoy were wounded.
The soldiers, who belong to the 31stReconnaissance Company of the Army's 3rdInfantry Division (3ID), escorted San Remigio Mayor Elizabeth Coloso last Friday who had presided over the inauguration rites of a school building in Barangay Alegria and spoke before the elementary school graduation rites in the neighboring Barangay Bulan-Bulan.
The soldiers were on foot along the national highway and were on their way back to their base in Barangay Aningalan when they were attacked by around 20 New People's Army (NPA) rebels, said Lt. Col. Erwin de Asis, spokesperson of the Army's 3rdInfantry Division. The 3ID covers Central and Western Visayas.
De Asis said a strong explosion believed to be from a command-detonated landmine preceded the firing from the rebels who were positioned at an elevated area at the side of the road.
"They (rebels) were on a vantage point," De Asis said in a telephone interview.
Azarcon was initially reported as missing but was found by government troops around the 8 a.m. yesterday with bullet wounds in his arm. He hid in the forested area near the ambush site overnight until troop reinforcements found him.
The ambush site is around 31 km from the town proper of San Remigio. The town is around 21 km northeast of the capital town of San Jose in Antique.
While Coloso's party went ahead, the mayor could also have been the target of the attack, said De Asis.
The rebels fled after a 15-minute firefight and took with the two M-16 rifles of the fatalities.
Capt. Lowen Gil Marquez, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' 32nd Civil Relation Unit, said the rebels were under the NPA's Napoleon Tumagtang Command of the Southern Front Committee of the CPP in Panay.
Troops assisted with helicopter gunships are conducting pursuit operations against the rebels who fled towards the mountainous areas straddling Antique and Iloilo provinces.
De Asis accused the rebels of being "anti-development for attacking troops who were only securing the inauguration rites of the school building."
San Remigio has been a traditional hotbed of the insurgency since the 1970s. In August 2004, a policeman, a soldier and a civilian were killed in a rebel ambush.
The attack came six days after the NPA's 39thfounding anniversary on March 29.
In its statement posted at its website (www.philippinerevolution.net) marking the NPA's anniversary, the CPP's Central Committee had directed the NPA to step up its offensives against government troops and to increase its "guerilla fronts" from 120 to 173 to cover all congressional districts.
The AFP is targeting the strategic defeat of the rebels by 2010 and has announced that it has neutralized its targeted guerrilla fronts last year. But this has been belittled by the CPP.
"The US-directed Arroyo regime (is) engaged in wishful thinking by repeatedly announcing their objective of destroying or "reducing to inconsequentiality" the people's armed revolution before 2010. History has shown that the Marcos regime failed to destroy the newly resurgent revolutionary movement from 1969 to 1986, including 14 years of fascist dictatorship from 1972 onwards. It merely succeeded in generating conditions for the growth and advance of the NPA and all other revolutionary forces," the CPP said in its statement.