Col. Rogelio Rosete, commanding officer of the Army’s 401st Infantry Brigade, told The STAR the killings of PO3 Thomasito Correos and SPO2 Allan Ebon showed that the NPA "has resorted to highway robberies to raise funds for their terrorist activities."
Reports said Correos was escorting Fe Valeroso, Surigao del Sur division superintendent of the Department of Education, when armed men believed to be NPA guerrillas flagged them down, along with other motorists, in Barangay Cadianao in Claver, Surigao del Norte last Thursday night.
Correos was reportedly shot when he intervened after the armed men divested Valeroso of his cash and valuables.
In the second incident, suspected rebels gunned down Ebon after they flagged down the vehicle of former mayor Danilo Orquina, whom the policeman was escorting, in Placer, Surigao del Norte yesterday morning.
Rosete said eight guerrillas stopped Orquina’s vehicle although 40 others, all heavily armed, were nearby.
Regional police officials have advised local candidates to refrain from campaigning at night although they gave assurances that intelligence gathering has been beefed up and anti-NPA measures have been in place.
In a related development, three rebels and a government militiaman were killed in firefights with patrolling soldiers in Balin—gasag, Misamis Oriental and Esperanza, Agusan del Sur yesterday.
Meanwhile, government troops captured two ranking communist rebels who were wounded in an encounter in Piat, Cagayan last week.
Chief Superintendent Jefferson Soriano, Cagayan Valley police director, said Lolito Raza and his wife, Christina Miguel, military head and front secretary, respectively, of the NPA’s Cagayan Valley Regional Party Committee, were among 23 guerrillas who clashed with a joint police-military team in Barangay Calawagan. — With Jaime Laude and Christina Mendez