NPA rebels torch bus in Nueva Ecija

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Heavily armed New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas set on fire a Manila-bound Baliwag bus in Carranglan, Nueva Ecija shortly before noon yesterday.

Senior Superintendent Luisito Palmera, Nueva Ecija police director, said the rebels asked the bus driver, Gavino Reyes, and his passengers to alight from the bus before torching it.

By the time responding policemen arrived, the rebels were gone and the bus was already on fire.

No one was hurt and most of the passengers took other vehicles to their destinations soon after the rebels had left. The bus originated from Aparri, Cagayan.

Palmera said the NPA committed the arson in its bid to compel the management of the Baliwag bus firm to yield to their extortion demands. The company, however, had reportedly ignored its demands.

Lt. Col. Preme Monta, spokesman of the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom), said it could not yet be determined how many NPA guerrillas were involved in the arson but pursuit operations against them have been launched.

The incident was the second in two months. Last April 7, a Baguio City-bound bus of the Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines, which had come from Manila, was also torched by suspected NPA guerrillas in Barangay Dolores in Capas, Tarlac.

As this developed, the Nolcom, based at Camp Aquino in Tarlac City, reported that two NPA members, one of them a top officer in Aurora, have surrendered to military and police authorities.

One of them, Sicon Dupli, alias Ka Liswag, was presented to Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes during his visit and dialogue with municipal mayors of Pangasinan in San Nicolas town last Monday.

Dupli was a regular member of the Yunit Gerilya of the Kalinga party committee, under one Kennedy Bangibang. He surrendered to intelligence operatives of the Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion under Lt. Col. Leopoldo Oganiza, last May 29.

Dupli turned over to Reyes an M-16 rifle with defaced serial number and told the Cabinet official that he was fed up with the communist movement and now prefers to live a normal life with his family.

The other returnee, identified as Sandy Angeles, 25, alias Ka Edwin or Ka Lando, surrendered to military and police authorities in Casiguran, Aurora.

A resident of Barangay Dianawan in Casiguran, Angeles was the logistics officer of the Kilusang Larangang Gerilya (KLG) in northern Aurora under one Andres Friginal, alias Ka Ping. — With Ric Sapnu, Benjie Villa, Artemio Dumlao and Manny Galvez