By ALAN JUANITO
Spokesperson, Julito Tiro Command
NPA North Central Mindanao Regional Operations Command
In a span of three days, 16 government soldiers were killed while six others were wounded in a series of military actions by units of the New People’s Army in North Central Mindanao Region. We present here the following details of the incidents:
29 September 2013, around 6:00 AM — A certain Junjun Versano, an active asset-informer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and a notorious bandit from San Isidro, Calabugao, Impasug-ong, Bukidnon, was killed when he resisted arrest carried out by an NPA unit under the Eastern Misamis Oriental-Northeastern Bukidnon (EMONEB) Subregional Command. An improvised pistol was seized from him.
30 September, around 5:00 AM — the same NPA unit harassed the Army-CAA (government paramilitary) detachment in Km. 30, Barangay (village) Calabugao.
30 September — two encounters ensued in Sitio Camansi, Barangay Banglay, Lagonglong, Misamis Oriental. Around 9:00 AM, a team from another NPA unit under the EMONEB Subregional Command sniped the troops of 58th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army, in a hot-pursuit operation. One government soldier was wounded in the incident.
At 2:00 PM of the same day, Red fighters employed a command-detonated explosive against a company-size column of the 58th Infantry Battalion in the same area. Ten soldiers were killed while five were wounded. An MG-520 aircraft immediately launched an air attack, indiscriminately firing three rockets, one landed on a stream nearby, the second one blew uphill sitio Camansi and the third one exploded near sitio Tapul immediately sending seventy-three families to evacuate forcibly.
On the other hand, the implementing guerrilla platoon suffered no casualty.
1 October, around 8:00 AM — an NPA unit harassed the Army-CAA detachment in Hagpa, Impasug-ong, Bukidnon.
1 October 2013 — another two incidents took place in Sitio Camansi. Around 1:00 PM, Red fighters fired at 58th Infantry Battalion troops caught looting an unoccupied house. Five of these thieving troops were killed. Around 2:00 PM, the Red fighters fired at a responding military helicopter.
Meanwhile, we confirm the earlier report of the 4th Infantry Division spokesperson that two of our comrades, Joel “Ka. Jenan” Fajardo and Margie “Ka. Jenjen” Almahan, offered their lives during an encounter with 58th IB troops in Barangay Busdi, Malaybalay City, Bukidnon, 22 September, around 8:00 PM. Capt. Christian Uy, however, deliberately omitted the fact that the outnumbered NPA squad fought fiercely a platoon of 8th Infantry Battalion troops, thereby killing three reactionary soldiers. Contrary to Capt. Uy’s malicious accusation that the said NPA unit was carrying out extortion activities, the comrades were performing their political task in educating the masses regarding the adverse effects of the impending establishment of napier grass plantations in the area by big capitalists.
While the propagandists of the reactionary armed forces consistently undermine the advance of the revolutionary movement in the region, the series of NPA offensives and increasing AFP casualties are solid proofs to the intensifying people’s armed resistance. This is our reasonable response to the counterrevolutionary Oplan Bayanihan designed to protect the Aquino government now battered from all sides due to the exposé of the pork barrel scandal, which plundered poor taxpayers’ money, as well as other forms corruption. The regime is now further mired in the quicksand of crisis because its boss, US imperialism, is experiencing a grave financial problem home ground which resulted in the partial shutdown of certain US government offices and institutions. While the people’s war rages, the NPA will launch more offensives against the armed forces rabidly defending the heels of the rotten semi-colonial and semi-feudal system under the puppet US-Aquino regime.