Davao Norte clash leaves soldier dead

DAVAO CITY, Philippines   – A soldier was killed in an encounter with suspected New People’s Army guerrillas in Kapalong town, Davao del Norte yesterday morning.

The fatality, whose identity was withheld pending notification of his family, was a member of a peace and development team of the Army’s 60th Infantry Battalion, said Capt. Ernest Carolina, spokesman for the Army’s 10th Infantry Division.

Carolina said a band of rebels reportedly stormed an Army patrol base in Barangay Gupitan at around 5:40 a.m. 

During the attack, the rebels positioned themselves at a nearby school and a church in Sitio Kapatagan, making it difficult for the soldiers to return fire.

Carolina said the presence of soldiers in the area was requested by the tribal leaders who want their villages secured from armed insurgents.

The leaders claimed the rebels harass and threaten the villagers.

Meanwhile in Maguindanao, two armed peasants were killed while another was wounded in a 30-minute firefight between two groups squabbling for control of a farmland in South Upi town Sunday.

Senior Inspector Roel Villarin, town police chief, said the encounter erupted between a group of 10 armed Muslim farmers and an armed faction of indigenous Teduray tribesmen.

The encounter occurred at a contested corn farm in Barangay Pandan, home to Muslims, Christians and Lumads.

Villarin said a Teduray farmer named Celso Buludan, 43, was killed in the shootout.

Barangay leaders claimed that a member of the Muslim group was also killed in the firefight. Residents refused to name the fatality. – With John Unson