NPAs gun down 2 village execs in Davao Norte

DAVAO CITY — Communist insurgents killed two village officials during an attack on a remote town in Davao del Norte Thursday, an Army official said.

Maj. Jose Ma. Cuerpo, Army spokesman in Southern Mindanao, said some 12 guerrillas of the New People’s Army (NPA) swooped down on Barangay El Salvador in New Corella town and threatened to wreak havoc if they failed to locate two barangay officials.

Cuerpo said the rebels eventually found barangay chairman Loreto Cabuga whom they forced to lead them to councilmen Raul Juaton and Bartolome Cabuga.

Later finding the two councilmen, they shot them dead in front of the village folk before allowing Cabuga to go free, Cuerpo said.

In a statement, the NPA’s Front 33 Operations Command said the two councilmen were killed due to their "long-standing blood debts to the revolutionary movement."

The rebels accused the councilmen, who were active militiamen, of being responsible for the killing of one of their comrades in Barangay El Salvador in 1998.

Last week, NPA guerrillas attacked the town of Lingig in Surigao del Sur, briefly holding its mayor and some residents hostage while they ransacked the armory of the municipal police of rifles.

Another NPA group abducted three lumads (uplanders) in Barangay Mapula in Paquibato district this city last Jan. 25. The lumads’ fate remains unknown.

The 8,000-strong Maoist NPA has been waging an armed campaign for 37 years and has recently stepped up attacks on government forces and rural businesses.

President Arroyo suspended peace talks with the rebels nearly two years ago after the US State Department blacklisted the group as a "foreign terrorist organization." — With AFP