Cafgu detachments in 5 towns on NPA target-list
Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu) detachments in the towns of Alimodian, Tubungan and Miag-ao in Iloilo and San Remegio and Valderama in Antique were targeted by the New People's Army (NPA) for elaborately-planned communist offensives.
The discovery came after authorities validated recoveries gathered from the site of the encounter between Army soldiers belonging to the Alpha Company of 78th Infantry Batallion of the 3rd Infantry Division and NPA rebels in Sitio Igpulo of Barangay Igcabugao, Igbaras, Iloilo early morning Wednesday.
Captain Lowen Gil Marquez, commanding officer of AFP's 3rd Civil Relations Group, disclosed to TNT the additional recoveries "of significant documents and evidences."
Among those in AFP possession now are logbooks and paperworks that laid down planned NPA attacks on three Iloilo towns and two in the Province of Antique.
Specific targets here are Army detachments and those of the Cafgu, the volunteer arm of the AFP.
Communist journals disclosed of some four months monitoring by the NPA group in the area. It was believed that actual offensives would have been given the go-signal in the next 24 hours.
Meantime, an unidentified group of men said to be from Barangay Buloc of Tubungan, Iloilo made initial verification of the dead NPAs yesterday. Another AFP source said the group wanted to claim the duo at the Butiong Funeral Homes in Sibalom, Antique.
Two NPA rebels, one a fully-armed amazon, were killed in the encounter following a government operation conducted by some seven Army soldiers. Marquez said the NPAs numbered to about 14 to 20 rebels.
The Army soldiers were in the area, a hinterland village of Igbaras, in response to earlier calls for help of the locals.
Marquez said villagers in the area have long been subjected to massive extortion by the NPAs.
"The massive extortion from the masses is about P5 every week, P100 per head of family per month, 120 pieces of corn every cropping and all these make the people suffer," he revealed.
Government troops recovered two M16 armalite rifles, two bandolier, nine backpacks and a sack of palay and basket of eggs believed to be the NPA's loot from the day's extortion rounds.