3 NPA rebs captured in Ecija

Three New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas were captured by government troops in a brief encounter in Nueva Ecija Tuesday.

Reports reaching the Army headquarters identified the arrested rebels as Dominador Asuncion, Samuel Santos and Mike Baltazar, all active members of the Bulacan provincial party committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), said Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, Army spokesman.

Bacarro said the three, along with their comrades, were conducting a teach-in in Sitio Navarro, Barangay Pulo when members of the Army’s 3rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion chanced upon them.

The rebels scampered in different directions while firing their guns, but the soldiers managed to capture Asuncion, Santos and Baltazar.

Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, has launched an all-out war against insurgents in Central Luzon in line with President Arroyo’s order to the military and police leadership to get rid of the communist insurgency in two years.

At least one battalion from Mindanao are now backing up Palparan’s anti-insurgency campaign in Central Luzon, one of the three areas picked by the military as pilot areas for the beefed-up drive (the two others are Southern Tagalog and Sorsogon in the Bicol).

To give teeth to her declaration of an all-out campaign against the insurgents, the President ordered the release of P1 billion in additional anti-insurgency funds for the police and the military.