By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
Nine New People’s Army (NPA) members were killed in two separate encounters on Negros Island over the weekend.
In the first encounter on Saturday morning, May 20, five NPA fighters died in a series of clashes with the Philippine Army’s 62nd Infantry Battalion (62IB) in Negros Occidental’s Moises Padilla town.
Lt. Colonel William Pesase, 62IB commander, said they encountered a 15-member NPA group which plans to conduct attacks or atrocities in Barangay Quintin Remo and in neighboring La Castellana town.
Pesase said they were informed by concerned residents of the NPA’s presence, which prompted them to conduct patrols in the village.
A 10-minute shootout took place at around 5:00 a.m., forcing the NPA to split up and retreat.
However, 40 minutes later, another clash happened in the village’s Sitio Oway-oway.
At past 7:00 a.m., a third gun battle occurred in the same area, until the NPA finally fled and left behind their dead comrades.
Among the items recovered at the encounter site include an M16 rifle, two .38 caliber revolvers, a KG9 machine pistol, a submachine gun, two homemade 12-gauge shotguns, four rifle grenades, and assorted ammunition.
Two radios, a mobile phone, 15 backpacks, a bandolier, an NPA flag, assorted food and medical supplies, and subversive documents were also recovered.
Authorities are now in the process of identifying the slain NPA fighters.
Meanwhile, around four members of the NPA’s Central Negros 1 (CN1) Front were killed in another encounter at Barangay Trinidad in Negros Oriental’s Guihulngan City yesterday.
Pesase, in a separate interview, said the four slain NPA members were among the heavily armed, who clashed with the 62IB in Sitio Cambawgon before dawn.
Authorities were on their way to retrieve the bodies of the deceased NPA members as of press time.
The Army recovered high-powered firearms, short arms and other war materiel at the encounter site.
An NPA member surrendered to the authorities.
Pesase said the Trinidad encounter was a result of pursuit operations from Saturday’s clash.
On April 18, Jose “Jojo” Albores, one of the leaders of CN1 of the Leonardo Panaligan Command, was killed in an encounter in Barangay Quintin Remo’s Sitio Lower Tiyos./With a report from PNA / DGB, WDJ