New People’s Army (NPA) rebels detonated a landmine and opened fire with assault rifles on a mini-bus on the national highway in Barangay Lagta, killing six passengers and wounding two others, said Superintendent Benjamin Suratos, spokesman of the regional police.
The fatalities were identified as SPO2 Jesus Huelva, 47; pro-government militiamen Marlon Mingoy, 29, Ruben Abuedo, 41, and Nestor Lancitas, 47, all security officers of the Baleno mayor; bus driver Jonathan Virtusio; and Jay Sanchez, Baleno’s assistant budget officer.
The two wounded were still unnamed.
Chief Superintendent Jaime Lasar, Bicol police director, said Huelva’s group were on their way to investigate a report that a certain Wincil Esquinola, a retired policeman, was killed inside his residence that morning. NPA rebels were said to be behind the murder.
The report was apparently a bait. When Huelva’s group reached Sitio Sug-ong in Barangay Lagta, the rebels, reportedly numbering at least 40, were waiting for them.
Maj. Jose Broso, the military’s civil relations chief in Southern Luzon, said the communist movement in Masbate has 80 members, 112 NPA regulars and some 12,000 mass-based supporters.
Masbate insurgents are believed to have 89 high-powered and 19 low-powered firearms.
Authorities said the NPA has killed a total of 78 people — 55 civilians and 23 police and Army personnel — in Bicol since January.
The previous day, NPA rebels overran an isolated military camp in Valencia City, Bukidnon and made off with 15 firearms.
The NPA is the armed wing of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines. The government has said it was preparing to resume talks with the rebels’ political arm, the National Democratic Front, in Oslo, Norway.
The talks were suspended two years ago when the NPA killed two lawmakers. — With AFP