6 Isabela lawmen survive attack

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – The six government operatives who were wounded on Friday’s daylight ambush in an interior Isabela town have already been declared out of danger with three of them released from hospital.  

The incident came a day after President Aquino visited the region to pay respects to the remains of slain Private first class Antonio Bunagan in Cagayan as well as Staff Sgt. Melchor Castro and Pfc. Camilo Topinio in Isabela who were killed in ambush in Mt. Province on July 9, exactly a week before the latest ambush in Isabela.

“Our policemen are out of danger. In fact three of them were already released from the hospital’s custody,” said Chief Inspector Roberto Bucad, information officer of the Isabela police office.

Joint police and Army operatives are still on hot pursuit operations against the more or less 50 armed men believed to be communist rebels for last Friday’s ambush, which claimed the life of Senior Inspector Alfonso Derraco, police chief of Isabela’s Benito Soliven town. 

Derraco and five of his men, SPO2 Rodolfo Marine, SPO2 Danilo Languido, PO3 Rogenito Sotelo, PO2 Nap Dagman and PO1 Alex Abalos, along with a certain Sgt. Ramos of the military intelligence service, were on their way to respond to a robbery incident in the town’s Barangay Villaluz when they were waylaid by the armed men in Barangay Danipa about 8:30 a.m.  

Languido, Sotelo and Abalos are recuperating from gunshot wounds but were already declared in stable condition.

“We are still investigating reports about the suspects’ utilizing landmines in attacking our colleagues,” Bucad said.  

Using landmines in armed conflicts is in violation of the rules of armed engagement under the United Nations’ Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile, the Army expressed belief that the NPA rebels who waylaid the policemen were also the same ones who ransacked the compound of a businessman, and also took with them one of his heavy equipment vehicles less than an hour before the ambush.