NPAs ransack armory of Davao penal colony

DAVAO CITY – Communist guerrillas disguised as soldiers raided the Davao Prison and Penal Colony in Davao del Norte and seized more than a hundred firearms from its armory in a daring pre-dawn attack yesterday.

Bureau of Corrections Director Vicente Vinarao relieved Catalino Malinao as superintendent of the penal colony and replaced him with Venancio Tesoro.

Vinarao had issued two memoranda to all prison officials, one last Jan. 16 and the second last month, directing them to seek security personnel assistance from the military and police during holidays.

Three teams from the bureau left for Davao yesterday to investigate the raid.

Initial reports said the raiders, heavily armed and dressed in military uniforms, arrived in five vans at around 1:30 a.m. and introduced themselves to the two guards at the gate, Alfredo Sambalot and Reynaldo Mirrales, as members of the military’s Task Force Davao.

They then ordered the two guards at gunpoint to take them to the armory. The two guards and the chief of the armory, Ernesto Romeo, were herded by the raiders into the vans and later let off in Barangay Kasilag in Panabo town.

Reports said the raiders carted away over 100 firearms, including rifles, shotguns, pistols and machine guns, and assorted bullets.

But Senior Superintendent Benito Bianzon, Davao del Norte police director, said "only a few" of the guns "could still be used," describing most of them as "actually very old."

Chief Superintendent Andres Caro, Southern Mindanao police director, said the raiders were led by Leonardo Pitao, alias Commander Parago, head of the New People’s Army’s Mindanao Regional Guerrilla Unit-Pulang Bagani Command.

In other developments:

• The leader of the NPA’s Mt. Amandawin Command operating in northern Leyte was captured in his safehouse in Tacloban City on Good Friday, the military said.

• On Black Saturday, NPA rebels in Abra ambushed an Army group securing the Regional Mobile Group (RMG), leaving two soldiers dead and four others wounded.

Lt. Col. Lope Dagoy, commanding officer of the Army’s 19th Infantry Battalion, said Paterno Opo, 46, also the deputy secretary of the NPA’s Northern Leyte Front, did not resist arrest when he was cornered in Barangay Nulatula at about 10:05 p.m.

Dagoy said his men, who was carrying an arrest warrant for Opo, also nabbed suspected NPA members Freddie and Leonor Bolito and the safehouse’s 16-year-old caretaker.

Seized from Opo were a Baby Armalite, three caliber .45 pistols, a caliber .38 revolver, three grenades, three M203 grenades, a cellular phone, two laptops, a motorcycle, assorted bullets, and subversive documents.

Dagoy, in a text message to The STAR, said Opo was lucky to be alive upon his capture, recalling that Opo’s three predecessors were all killed – two (Nestor Cliwan and Bebiano Rentellosa) in encounters, and the third (Antonio Ramos) shot dead when he grabbed a soldier’s Armalite in a checkpoint.

In Abra, government troops were pursuing the insurgents who waylaid men of the Army’s 41st Infantry Battalion in Lacub town, a half day of bumpy ride from Bangued, the capital town, on the morning of Black Saturday.

Superintendent Joseph Adnol, spokesman of the Cordillera police, identified the slain soldiers as Pfc. Eduardo Gayagoy and Pvt. Michael Sabuero, and those wounded as 2Lt. Holly John Godinez, Corporals Luis Cabangan and Edward Gannaba, and Pfc. Joel Felipe.

Last March 29, the RMG lost a member during an NPA ambush also in Lacub town. Three other policemen were wounded in the attack.

On Holy Monday, the military discovered an NPA camp in Sitio Pacoc, Barangay Tampalac in Lacub town, said to be the biggest so far found in Abra.

Maj. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang, commander of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division, said the camp apparently used to be the base of the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA’s provincial party committee.

Besides firearms and subversive documents, the raid on the abandoned rebel enclave, according to the 5th ID, yielded bundles of election materials of the militant party-list groups Bayan Muna and Anakpawis.

"If this does not prove their connections to the party-list groups, at least it shows that they are interested in these groups winning the elections," an Army officer said.

Maclang said the huge NPA enclave has at least 24 huts, a clinic, mess hall, an oval and a basketball court, an armory, and radio and computer rooms. – With Roberto Dejon, James Mananghaya, Artemio Dumlao and Charlie Lagasca