January 6, 2008 | 12:00am
New People’s Army (NPA) rebels ambushed an Army unit that had just provided security for Sen. Edgardo Angara and his party in Dinalungan, Aurora yesterday afternoon.
Lt. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang, Northern Luzon (Nolcom) commander, said the attack took place at about 1 p.m. in Barangay Nipoo in Dinalungan, a northern town of Aurora.
He said one soldier was slightly injured during the ambush after Army troops fired back and forced the rebels to withdraw.
The ambush occurred just three kilometers away from the Dinalungan town proper where Angara’s group launched the CocoFiber livelihood project for local residents.
“Our troops, while on their way back to their base after providing security assistance for the visit of Senator Angara, were fired upon by an undetermined number of NPAs,” Maclang said.
Maclang ordered the deployment of troops from the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion to conduct pursuit operations.
Angara and his party were advised by military and police authorities in the area not to proceed to their next engagement in Casiguran town for security reasons.
Angara, who hails from Aurora, however, continued his program in Casiguran after the project launching at Dinalungan.
“The senator traveled by boat. The residents of Casiguran were waiting for him at the port in Barangay Dibacong,” a provincial official told The STAR.
Angara said he was not aware of any ambush on the Army troops securing him in Dinalungan.
In a telephone interview, Angara said the story that he was in the convoy that was ambushed was a pure concoction and that neither he nor his escorts were harmed.
“The reports that came out were inaccurate. There is absolutely no truth to them,” he said.
Angara said he was in Aurora to launch a coconut seedling and propagation project and the Center for Coconut Production and Research in Dinalungan.
He said he also visited Casiguran, a nearby town, to oversee other maritime culture projects, including the culture of high-value fish like lapu-lapu, sea bass, milkfish and tilapia as well as seafood like oysters, clams, bluefin tuna and other tuna species.
Mina Pangandaman, chief of staff of Angara, clarified that the senator was not the target of the rebel attack in Dinalungan.
Pangandaman said Angara was not part of the Army convoy that was ambushed because the senator was traveling by sea to Casiguran at the time of the incident.
She said Angara was very far away from the encounter and there was no threat to his life. – With Aurea Calica
