LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has identified at least 70 barangays in the Bicol region as “hot spots” and 247 more were placed under close watch in the run-up to the Oct. 25 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
Bicol has been a stronghold of communist rebels since the early 1980s as some of the founders of the underground movement were Bicolanos, particularly the slain Sotero Llamas, who was a native of Tabaco City, Albay.
Col. Romeo Ayson, deputy commander of the Army’s 901 Infantry Brigade based in Albay, said they have stepped up their counterinsurgency operations in Bicol amid reports that the insurgents would again harass barangay candidates not sympathetic to their cause.
This developed as a communist guerrilla was killed and scores more were believed wounded in an encounter with government troops before dawn yesterday in Barangay Barihay, San Andres, Catanduanes, Ayson said.
Ayson said the rebels abandoned the body of their slain comrade as they fled to a forested portion of San Andres town after engaging the soldiers in a brief firefight. The slain guerrilla remained unidentified.
“We believe that several rebels were seriously wounded because bloodstains were everywhere in the encounter site,” Ayson told The STAR.
– With Alexis Romero