5 soldiers slain in NPA clash

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- Five soldiers were killed in an encounter with suspected New People’s Army rebels at Barangay Mainit in the boundary of Bontoc and this town around 10:30 Wednesday morning.

Backed by helicopter gunships, men of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division based in Isabela are now pursuing the rebels believed belonging to the Kilusang Larangang Gerilya of the New People’s Army’s Ilocos Regional Party Committee.

Col. Loreto Magundayao, civil-military relations head of the 5th ID, said the government troops were there to provide security to ongoing construction of the multimillion-peso Halsema Highway project of the national government when they chanced upon the rebels.

The Bontoc Mainit road is not within Halsema Highway.

Killed during the firefight were Cpl. Napoleon Ramirez, and Pfcs. Joseph Casem, Velasco Mayao, Joey Corpuz, and Camilo Abad.

Four other soldiers, including Pfc. Salvador Villanueva, were wounded in the clash. Army troops belonging to the Alpha Company of 54th Infantry Battalion, while on combat operations reportedly encountered around NPA rebels at the steep mountain resulting to a firefight lasting around an hour.

In a report to Brig. Gen. Rommel A. Gomez, commander of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division, by Col. Remegio De Vera, commanding officer of 501st Infantry Brigade, he said the NPA group was led by Lipito Wigit, “Ka Dalalatumbas.”

Local folks said the NPA guerillas shot the soldiers with sniper fire from vantage positions with the troopers not knowing where the shots were coming from.

An army report said the NPA rebels withdrew to different directions carrying with them their casualties.

Local folks urged police and army authorities to caution army troopers to refrain from committing human rights abuses against residents in retaliation for the killing of the soldiers like in the past following encounters with the rebel group.