Marines repulse NPA rebs in Palawan attack

A platoon of Marine soldiers repulsed at least 30 New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas who attacked their detachment in Roxas, Palawan last Saturday afternoon.

Reports reaching Chief Superintendent Louie Palmera, Mimaropa police director, said the government suffered no casualty during a one-hour firefight.

“The enemy withdrew toward the southeast direction after the firefight, carrying along their casualties,” he said.

Palmera said the Marine detachment is located in Barangay Iraan in the northern town of Roxas.

“The town is surrounded by mountain ranges where the NPAs are. The Marines are there to prevent the rebels from influencing the local residents,” he said.

Palmera said the insurgents opened fire at the Marine detachment at around 2:30 p.m. Saturday. But the soldiers held their ground and engaged their attackers in a fierce firefight.

Palmera has dispatched men of the 413rd Provincial Police Mobile Group to pursue the NPA raiders.

Senior Superintendent Nilo Anzo, acting Palawan police director, said the rebels also tried to overrun the same Marine detachment in December last year.

In Agusan del Sur, meanwhile, a ranking NPA leader and two of his men were killed in an encounter with government troops in Barangay Mt. Carmel, Bayugan City last Saturday afternoon.

Army Maj. Michele Anayron, spokesman of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, identified the slain rebel leader as Carlito Canoy, finance officer of the Front Committee 21-B of the NPA’s Northeastern Mindanao Regional Command. 

Canoy’s two followers killed in the clash remained unidentified, Anayron said.

In North Cotabato, local officials have warned of more NPA attacks in Central Mindanao and adjoining regions as “diversionary maneuvers” to ease military pressure on renegade forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The other day, some 60 guerrillas stormed a detachment of the Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit in Barangay Luna, Makilala, a hinterland town in North Cotabato, killing a militiaman and wounding three others and an Army sergeant.

Although outnumbered, the militiamen stood their ground and wounded six guerrillas.

North Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmanuel Pinol said they have received reports from barangay officials that insurgents in the province plan to harass police and military installations to stall the manhunt for renegade MILF commanders Ameril Ombra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo.

Kato and Macapaar carry a P10-million bounty each for leading bloody attacks in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte after the aborted signing of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain. – With Edith Regalado and John Unson