BY FREDDIE LAZARO, JERRY PADILLA AND DEXTER SEE
CAMP DANGWA, Benguet – New People’s Army guerillas have stepped up attacks against government forces in the Cordillera the latest, an ambush wherein seven soldiers, including a lieutenant and one CAFGU member, were killed and four others were seriously wounded in an encounter between government troops and fully armed New People’s Army rebels here in Barangay Bao-yan, Boliney town morning on May 16.
Also last week, a government trooper was also killed and 17 others were wounded when they were ambushed by NPA rebels in Samoki, Bontoc, Mountain Province .
In the Boliney incident, soldiers of the Army’s 41st Infantry Battalion based in Lagangilang, Abra were securing the road from Manabo to Boliney for the transport of ballot boxes when landmines exploded.
Col. Loreto G. Rirao, commander of the Army’s 503rd Brigade based in Barangay7 Sulvec, Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, identified the slain soldiers as 2nd Lieutenant Mark Evan Onrubia, Sgt. Edmunt T. Soriano, Cpl. Antonio H. Gestiada, Private First Class (PFC) Peter D. Gumbal, PFC Harvey M. Bumangit, PFC Reynante G. Barcena, PFC Bobster D. Banatao and CAFGU member Florentino Palkiw.
Rirao identified the two wounded soldiers and two wounded CAFGUs as corporals Esteban A. Langcay and Dante Estrada, and Jushua Bay-ed and Pablito Colis, respectively.
“The soldiers were sent to the areas to secure the transport of ballot boxes from Boliney and neighboring towns,” Rirao said.
Reports said the ensuing fierce firefight lasted for more than an hour.
The 40 NPA rebels attacked the 11-man platoon led by Onrubia to snatch the ballots from Barangay Bauayan in Boliney, Abra before they could be delivered to the municipal hall for canvassing, army officials said.
“The NPAs were conducting a road blockade intended to snatch the ballots in order to favor an unidentified candidate who allegedly paid large sums to the NPA as his permit-to-win fees but the troops managed to prevent them,” said LT. Col. Ernesto Torres Jr., Army spokesman and chief of public affairs.
The soldiers were reportedly ordered by Lt. Col Raul Bautista, Army 41st Infantry Battalion commander, to clear the highway from Manabo to Boliney of any armed threat.
Army reinforcement later caught up with some of the retreating NPA rebels, sparking another clash, but there was no immediate report of new casualties, Torres said.
Two helicopter gunships were on standby to help pursue the guerrillas, he added.
Senior Insp. Dennis Agno, a Regional Police Mobile Group commander in Luba town, said troops and policemen engaged the NPA attackers in a running gunbattle, and that fighting into the night.
Agno said 100 NPA rebels had attacked Onrubia and his men, not 40 as the Army had reported.
Agno said he and other police officers had passed near the scene of the first clash while escorting Commission on Elections personnel to another town and heard gunshots erupting everywhere.
“We heard volleys of gunfire in that area, and we were told by villagers at least seven soldiers died in the fighting,” he said.
Agno said they did not stop to help the soldiers because there already were Army reinforcements in the area, and he could not abandon the Comelec personnel.
Security forces had been warned of possible communist NPA attacks in Abra intended to disrupt the elections.
Army and police forces had been sent to Abra, which has been the scene of deadly clashes linked to intense electoral rivalries.
The NPA in the Cordillera and Ilocos regions had threatened to attack soldiers to frustrate an alleged military plan to rig the election results in favor of pro-administration candidates.
In the Bontoc incident wherein a government trooper was killed and 17 others were wounded, the ambush was staged while the government troopers were on their way back to their base from an operation in nearby Barlig town.
A policeman, who led a team that responded to the ambush, was also shot in the arm in a later attack, said Chief Supt. Raul S. Gonzales, director of the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera.
He identified the lone fatality as Private Vince Ezperanzate of the Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion.
Wounded were 2Lt. Eduardo Sia-ed, 2 Lt. Ruron Zambrano, S/Sgt. Simplicio Premero, S/Sgt. Ernesto Pico, Sgt. Gaudencio Felsi, PFC Iraneo Iglesia, PFC Edwin Felismino, PFC Domingo Pascual, and Privates Clemente Binlingan, Jose Polido Jr. and Manuel Calaquian and Corporals Leonardo de Guzman, Alberto Gamotea and Rolando Tesalonia, all of 54th IB.
Two teams of the 1611th provincial police mobile group responded to the attack. PO2 Robinson Gonzales was shot when the armed men attack anew.
The NPA’s Leonardo Pacsi Command said “a four-vehicle convoy of the notorious 54th Infantry Battalion was ambushed in Sukit, Samoki, Bontoc.”
Ka Magno Udyaw, LPC spokesman said the NPA Red fighters staged the ambush along the Bontoc-Paracelis Road at around 11 a.m. and safely retreated at 12:30 p.m. without any casualties. Udyaw said they let two vehicles of Philippine National Police pass before attacking the two following vehicles full of army soldiers.
Udyaw said the 50-man army troop came from a five-day massive military operation in the eastern towns of Mountain Province . “The operation was conducted in the guise of providing armed security for bagmen of politicians out on a vote-buying spree and distributing cash and goods in the area. The soldiers also went around threatening civilians with fictitious search and arrest warrants. They arbitrarily accused anyone who took their fancy as an NPA sympathizer.”
The LPC spokesman said among the crimes of the 54th IB against the people are as follows: “On August 5, 2003, a unit of the 54 th IB led by 2Lt. Sia-ed murdered Etfew Chadyaas, a farmer from Belwang, Sadanga. They falsely accused him as an NPA Red fighter and commander. On March 20-23, 2006 a combined unit of the 54th IB and 53rd Recon Coy burned three makeshift shacks of small scale miners at Chakep creek, Mainit. In July 2006, the same unit murdered Michael Uyad, a student from Gueday, Besao when chanced upon during its military operations.
Last November 2006, the same unit forcibly opened and ransacked granaries and houses in Saclit, Sadanga without warrants. And on November 18-20, 2006, combat troops of the 54 th IB on military operations stole plants and ransacked makeshift shacks of kaingin farmers at Patang, Tonglayan, Natonin. The periodic massive military operations of the 54th IB always disrupted the masses' socio-economic activities and committed numerous human rights violations.”
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