2 captive soldiers not ‘POWs’

LEGAZPI CITY — They’re not "prisoners of war."

Thus maintained Maj. Jose Broso, commander of the 2nd Civil Relations Group of the Armed Forces’ Southern Luzon Command, referring to two Army soldiers captured by communist rebels during a clash in Tinambac, Camarines Sur last March 1.

Broso was reacting to claims by Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal, spokesman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, that 1Lt. Ronaldo Fidelino and Pfc. Ronel Nemeno are being held as "prisoners of war" by the Romulo Jallores Command of the New People’s Army (NPA), the CPP’s armed unit.

"Ka Roger has no right to claim that the two soldiers being held by the NPAs are ‘prisoners of war’ because the NPAs are not political rebels but terrorists," Broso said in a statement, adding that the rebels have not yet attained a status of belligerency.

"This is a classic strategy of the NPA to show they are negotiating from a superior position by portraying the vulnerability of the government while negotiating the release of the two captured Army soldiers," he said.

Broso said this is also what the NPA did when they took Senior Inspector Roberto Bernal hostage in 1996.

Rosal told radio station Bombo Radyo-Legazpi yesterday that the government could negotiate the release of Fidelino and Nemeno with the National Democratic Front (NDF).

Earlier, the communist rebels demanded that the military suspend its maneuvers in Southern Tagalog in exchange for the two soldiers’ freedom. But the Army rejected this.

Fidelino and Nemeno were part of a team of the Army’s 42nd Infantry Battalion who responded to reports that NPA guerrillas were sighted in Tinambac town, about 30 kilometers from their camp in Tigaon, Camarines Sur.