5 soldiers hurt in clash with NPA rebels

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – Five soldiers were wounded in two days of hostilities which started Monday between government forces and communist rebels in North Cotabato’s restive Makilala town.

The latest encounter between New People’s Army guerrillas and soldiers, which erupted early Tuesday in Barangay New Israel, Makilala left two soldiers, initially identified only as Cpls. Pantasan and Soria, badly wounded.

The wounded soldiers, who both belong to the 6th ID’s elite 62nd Division Reconnaissance Company, and several companions were on their way to a hinterland area in Barangay New Israel on board an Army truck when NPAs, positioned at one side of the road, shot them with assault rifles.

The companions of Pantasan and Soria managed to jump out of their vehicle and engage their attackers, preventing the rebels from closing in on the soldiers. 
   
The attackers scampered away after sensing that responding soldiers from a nearby Army base, backed by militiamen, have started arriving at the scene.

Inspector Rizal Alolod, the acting Makilala municipal police chief, said the soldiers the NPAs ambushed were on their way to check on complaints of farmers on the extortion by rebels of “revolutionary tax” in Barangay New Israel.

NPA rebels have been frequenting the secluded barangay, where they force farmers to give them money and food at gunpoint.

The latest NPA attack in Barangay New Israel came less than 24 hours after rebels opened fire on another group of soldiers searching for landmines and roadside bombs in an open field in another area not far from the scene of the ambush.

They wounded soldiers, Cpls. Antonio Grafil Jr., Allan Lauria, and Jonathan Santos, who are now undergoing medication at the Makilala Medical Specialist Center at the town proper of Makilala.

Local officials said the NPAs in North Cotabato’s adjoining Magpet, Makilala, Arakan and Antipas towns have been counter-attacking combatants of the 6th ID and its component-unit, the 602nd Brigade, for having liberated more than 20 guerilla enclaves in the four towns the past five months.

Col. Ademar Tomaro, commander of the 602nd Brigade, said NPAs in North Cotabato have also been trying to return to their former camps, which they intend to use as “springboards” for their extortion activities that would target politicians that would campaign  in far-flung areas. 
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John Unson | The Philippine Star | February 12, 2013 | Article Link 

Army, rebels clash in Cotabato town

KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Government troops under the Army's 602nd Brigade encountered some 50 fully armed communist rebels in the hinterlands of Tulunan, North Cotabato, over the weekend, reports from the military said.

The exchange of fires between elements of the 68th Infantry Battalion and the rebels under the 72nd Front Committee of the New People’s Army (NPA) started around 2:45 p.m. Saturday in Barangay Batang in Tulunan.

The firefight lasted for less than an hour, according to 1 Lieutenant Kenny Ramona, commanding officer of the Bravo Company of the 68th Infantry Battalion (IB).

None among the soldiers was hurt, but the rebels, according to Ramona, suffered undetermined number of casualties as evidenced by bloodstains in the site.

No reported displacement of villagers in the area since the encounter site is far from the populated areas, Ramona said.

He hinted the rebels they encountered over the weekend were under same group that led the attacks in nearby Makilala town and in Kidapawan City.

On Monday, elements of the 40th IB and the 57th IB of the 602nd Brigade engaged in an intense armed fighting with the rebels in the hinterlands of Makilala town.

The Army suffered two fatalities and another soldier injured, according to reports from the 57th IB.

The military has no data as to the casualty on the rebel side.

On Wednesday, the NPAs shot dead in a busy commercial district in Kidapawan City a Swiss-Filipino national who has long worked with the military in North Cotabato in its peace-building activities.

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Malu Cadeliña Manar | SunStar.Com.Ph | Monday, March 12, 2012 | Article Link

Troops continue to hunt down Kipawan jail raiders

COTABATO CITY - Government operatives recovered two dozens of new Army uniforms and combat boots in a house where raiders of the Kidapawan City jail slept before they carried out the botched attempt to spring their leader from the facility.


Kidapawan City Mayor Rodolfo Gantuangco, chairman of the city’s inter-agency peace and order council, said this is an indication that the plan to rescue detained bandit Datukan Samad from the jail was indeed carefully planned.


Policemen and soldiers found the military provisions, which include a first-aid kit, schematic sketches of the streets traversing the area where the city jail is located, and the gunmen’s possible escape routes, inside an abandoned house in a secluded area about 10 kilometers southeast of Kidapawan City.


More than a hundred combatants of the Philippine Army’s 602nd Brigade, and members of the North Cotabato provincial police are still been scouring the surroundings of Kidapawan City in search of some 50 gunmen that tried to rescue Samad.


Three people were killed and 16 others were injured in the attack when the gunmen set off improvised explosive devices, indiscriminate fired B-40 anti-tank rockets, and strafed buildings in the surroundings with assault rifles, when they failed to breach the guarded gate of the city jail.


Samad, also known as Commander Lastikman in his hometown Pikit in North Cotabato, is being litigated for multiple murders, highway robberies, kidnappings, drug-trafficking, and cattle-rustlings and theft of government-owned firearms.


An Army Simba combat vehicle and a platoon-size Army contingent are posted in the immediate surroundings of the jail to prevent a repeat of the bungled attempt to rescue Samad.


Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo awarded yesterday with merit citations 27 members of the fire and jail management bureaus and a civilian volunteer watchman for thwarting an attempt by some 50 gunmen to spring from jail bandit Datukan Samad from the Kidapawan City jail last Sunday.


The awarding rite, held in Kidapawan City, was witnessed by local officials led by Gantuangco.


Nineteen of the 27 awardees are firemen while the rest are security details from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and a civilian community watchman named Joemar Lizardo, who, all together, fused ranks when they repelled the heavily armed attackers, preventing them from even getting close to the front gate of the city jail.


Among those Robredo awarded with medals were the injured Lizardo, Chief Inspector Romeo Tactaquin, who is Kidapawan City’s fire marshal, and his subordinate-firemen, Jerry Anunciado and Jonathan Cornejo, all being treated of gunshot and shrapnel wounds at a hospital in Kidapawan City.


Samad is just one of 16 “high risk” inmates at the Kidapawan City jail local officials wanted transferred to any detention facility outside of North Cotabato even before Sunday’s bloody incident.
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By John Unson 
The Philippine Star
February 24, 2012 12:25 PM
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