1 killed, 2 hurt in Masbate NPA ambush

LEGAZPI CITY — New People’s Army (NPA) rebels killed a civilian and wounded a policeman and a militiaman during an ambush in Mandaon, Masbate Saturday morning, police said.

The joint police-militia team was responding to a report that some 70 heavily armed guerrillas had swooped down on a ranch in Barangay San Juan when they were waylaid.

The rebels shot dead a bull cow and torched a bulldozer at the ranch apparently due to the owner’s refusal to pay "revolutionary taxes," said Chief Superintendent Victor Barbo Boco, Bicol police director.

Barangay San Juan is about 12 kilometers from the Mandaon town proper. The municipality itself is about 65 kilometers of rough roads from Masbate City.

Boco said the ranch caretaker, Renato Rivera, reported the incident, prompting Chief Inspector Bryant Castillo, Mandaon police chief, to form a team of six policemen and three militiamen to verify it.

Suspecting that the NPA might have planted an improvised land mine along the route, the group decided to walk the 12-kilometer distance to Barangay San Juan.

However, when they reached Sitio Kaboloan at about 7 a.m., the rebels fired at them, triggering a four-hour running gunbattle.

The first burst of gunfire fatally hit Rivera and wounded PO2 Erwin Ombas and militiaman Joseph Marcilla.

The rebels later withdrew, carting away Ombas’ M-14 rifle and 9-mm pistol, as reinforcements arrived from the Milagros town police, the 506th Provincial Police Mobile Group, the Sorsogon police led by Inspector Antonio Lacson and the Bravo Company of the Army’s 20th Infantry Battalion under 2Lt. Genesis Olandag.

The fleeing rebels took SPO1 Dante Alba hostage but he was able to escape, boarded a bus bound for Masbate City, and later reported back to the Mandaon police headquarters.

"We are still conducting a hot pursuit operation," said Senior Superintendent Eugenio Alcovindas, Masbate police director, adding that some of the rebels, who withdrew toward Barangay Cabitan, could have been wounded in the gunbattle.

"We were expecting (the rebels) to attack either during or after their 37th anniversary," Alcovindas said.

While the Mandaon gunbattle was going on, Alcovindas said three NPA hit men gunned down a retired police commissioned officer, Edwin Corral Sr., 59, inside his passenger van in Barangay Malinta, Masbate City.

The incidents happened while Philippine National Police chief Director General Arturo Lomibao was at Camp General Simeon Ola here for the groundbreaking of the new regional police intelligence quarters.

Lomibao was in the middle of his speech when the Mandaue ambush occurred. In the audience were Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzales and Boco.

"I have already submitted a proposal for the police to conduct operations against the NPA because as we all know it is the Armed Forces that is responsible for counter-insurgency operations," said Lomibao when asked what the PNP would do to stave off NPA ambuscades of policemen and attacks on isolated police detachments.

"We also have to intensify the training of our policemen in combat operations to be able to meet this new challenge," he said.

Lomibao said the Bicol region has a quota of 200 new police recruits, a number of whom would replace policemen who have been serving for more than two years in the Regional Mobile Group so they could acquire combat experience.

Boco said the region accounts for more than half of NPA attacks in the country.

During his visit, Lomibao turned over firearms, handcuffs and new patrol cars for the police units of the Camarines Sur towns of Basud, Sipocot and Bula.

To beef up police capability, Gonzales has donated 12 brand new computers to the different police stations in Albay.

The Mandaue incident is the second major NPA attack in Masbate this year. Last Jan. 6, 50 rebels detonated a land mine during an ambush in Claveria town, killing five policemen and three construction workers. — With Cecille Suerte Felipe