BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Military and police personnel seized eight guns and 15 pairs of police uniforms from a New People's Army arms cache in Nagtipunan in Quirino province.
Soldiers of the Army's 5th Infantry Division and personnel of Joint Task Force – National Capital Region and the Cagayan Valley police recovered two M14 rifles, four M16 rifles, one M653 "Baby Armalite", an upper receiver of an M16 rifle, bullets, and 15 sets of police uniforms and 14 pairs of combat boots.
The arms cache was hidden by communist rebels belonging to the Kilusang Larangang Guerilla Quirino-Nueva Vizcaya, Brigadier General Bartolome Vicente Bacarro, commander of the 502nd Infantry Brigade said.
In a separate incident, soldiers of the Army's 86th Infantry Battalion stumbled onto a rebel camp while on security patrol at Sitio Pulang Lupa, in the same barangay in Nagtipunan town that the rebel weapons were found.
While scouring the area, the soldiers were reportedly fired on by an undetermined number of rebels, who withdrew after a five-minute gunfight. Bacarro claimed no one from the government side was hurt or wounded.
He said some rebels were hurt and probably killed in the brief exchange of gunfire.