4 more ‘NPA rebels’ killed as Negros clashes continue

Bacolod City, Philippines —  Four more suspected New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas were killed as clashes continued on Negros Island over the weekend.

The figure brought to nine the total number of guerrillas killed in two days, according to the Army’s 62nd Infantry Battalion (62IB).

The latest fatalities were recorded yesterday in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental, where pursuing Army troopers caught up with the remnants of 14 guerrillas they encountered a day before in Moises Padilla, Negros Occidental.

Five rebels were killed in the firefight that occurred in Barangay Quintin Remo, Moises Padilla on Saturday, authorities said.

Aside from the remains of the guerrillas, several firearms were seized at the scene of the firefight that occurred in Barangay Trinidad, Guihulngan Ciy, according to 2/Lt. Mary Liza Joy de Guzman, civil-military operations officer of the 62IB.

De Guzman said the fatalities were among a group of guerrillas earlier encountered by soldiers of the 62IB in Moises Padilla.

The military has yet to identify the fatalities.

The encounter in Moises Padilla displaced about 250 families, who sought shelter in different evacuation centers in the town and the nearby municipality of Isabela.

The report did not mention if there were families displaced by the firefight in Guihulngan City

Insurgency-free

Meanwhile, Bacolod City, capital of Negros Occidental, has been declared insurgency-free.

The declaration was made by the regional joint peace and security coordinating center during a  meeting presided by Brig. Gen. Archival Macala, officer-in-charge of the Westenn Visayas police; Brig. Gen. Orlando Edralin, commander of the Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade, and Commodore Arnaldo Lim, chief of the Philippine Coast Guard–Western Visayas.

The three officials co-chair the peace coordinating center.

Macala said the declaration indicated that local authorities have neutralized the operations of the NPA in Bacolod.

In the past several years, no insurgency-related incidents occurred in the city, based on the reports of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several incidents of liquidation carried out by the NPA’s special partisan unit occurred in Bacolod including in schools, military and police records showed.

Brig. Gen. Marion Sison, chief of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, urged security agencies to prevent the communists from operating anew in the city — Rainier Allan Ronda