6 soldiers slain in Abra attacks, NPA claims

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet, Philippines – Six soldiers were reportedly killed in attacks in a remote village in upland Lacub town in Abra, days after communist rebels ambushed three military trucks in Ifugao province, killing 11 soldiers and a civilian, a spokesman of the New People’s Army (NPA) said yesterday.

NPA spokesman Diego Wadagan said rebel units from the Procopio Tauro Front under the Agustin Begnalen Command victoriously attacked a detachment of the Army’s 41st Infantry Battalion in Sitio Bantugo, Poblacion Lacub last Thursday morning.

Wadagan claimed three soldiers died on the spot while another was wounded, but offered no identities of the victims.

Another attack by an NPA team the following day against government reinforcements from a platoon of the 41st IB at Mt. Inuman, also in Lacub, killed three more soldiers, Wadagan said.

Wadagan said the attacks were carried out to “punish the 41st IB, 503rd Brigade for consistently serving as large-scale mining security force, terrorizing the people, violating human rights, and oppressing the indigenous people.”

However, Chief Superintendent Benjamin Magalong, Cordillera police director, said there were no government casualties in the NPA attacks.

Yesterday, the military admitted that the ambush in Tinoc may have happened due to the complacency of government troops in the area.

Lt. Gen. Anthony Alcantara, Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command chief, said the soldiers may have felt a “false sense of security” as most of the local residents are peace-loving citizens.

“Our countrymen there (in Ifugao) are mostly peace-loving Filipinos,” he said. – With Alexis Romero