NPA owns up attack in Mindanao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 30, 2010) – New People’s Army communist rebels took responsibility Tuesday the killing of six government soldiers in an attack in the southern Philippines.

A rebel spokesman Dyomabuk Kadyawan, of the NPA’s Antonio Nerio Antao Command, said the attackers also seized an M16 rifle from the soldiers. Three more soldiers were wounded in the weekend attack in the village of Mahan-ob in Davao Oriental’s Baganga town, Kadyawan said.

He said the attack sparked a firefight that lasted more than an hour. “The guerilla offensive lasted for at least an hour. Six enemy troops were killed in action while three were wounded. The NPA sustained no casualties. The Red Army recovered an M-16 Armalite rifle,” Kadyawan said.

He said the military bragged about its victory in setting up the so-called Barangay Defense System, which proved vulnerable to rebel attack.

“The guerilla action is a slap on the enemy's face who just recently declared that Baganga in Davao Oriental is said to be NPA-free,” Kadyawan said, adding “the NPA action exposed the fascist enemy's blindness on the NPA presence in the supposedly NPA-free municipality. Despite their BDS, they have no inkling that the NPA unit was just in the vicinity where they were resting on.”

The attack occurred on the eve of the NPA’s 41st anniversary and even after authorities heightened security in areas where rebels are actively operating.

Last week, rebels raided a fruit plantation in the village of Guinhalinan in Surigao del Sur’s Barobo town and destroyed four excavators and two bulldozers owned by a sub-contractor of DOLE Philippines, Inc.

NPA forces also attacked a military detachment in the village of Luz in North Cotabato’s Mlang town and killed a government militia and wounded two more before ransacking an army detachment and seized 35 assorted high powered weapons.

But the military downplayed the attacks and branded them as terrorism.

“For more than four decades now, the New People’s Army celebrates its anniversary founded on greed rationalized by the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist creed. No wonder why the lowly NPA rebels in the mountains are fighting a losing war to satisfy the whims and caprices of their leaders who have been enriching only themselves and their families; to the detriment of the NPA rank-and-file, all in the guise of fighting a legitimate cause,” said Colonel Daniel Lucero, Assistant Chief of Staff for Civil-Military Operations of the Philippine Army.

He said the NPA is synonymous to violence and an enemy of Philippine democratic ideals.

“The ordinary Juan dela Cruz now abhors violence as a means to achieving an end and has vowed to stop violence and coercion in pursuing a supposedly genuine aspiration,” Lucero said.

He said the Philippines is dubbed as one of the most democratic countries in Asia.

“It is ironic to see the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army- National Democratic Front still electing to adhere to a system long outdated by evolution and modernity. Other than being a money-making extortion business with an objective aimed at advancing the personal and political ambitions of its leaders, the agenda of the CPP-NPA-NDF are quite dubious,” Lucero said.

The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines which has been fighting for decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)