Philippine Army denies NPA claims

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 30, 2010) – The Philippine Army denied Tuesday claims by communist rebels that six soldiers were killed in an attack in the country’s restive southern region.

The New People’s Army claimed to have killed the soldiers in the village of Mahan-on in the town of Baganga in Davao del Norte province over the weekend.

A rebel spokesman Dyomabuk Kadyawan, of the NPA’s Antonio Nerio Antao Command, said the attackers also seized an M16 rifle from the government soldiers and that 3 more infantrymen were wounded in the fighting.

He said the attack sparked a firefight that lasted more than an hour. “The guerrilla 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.

The attack occurred on the eve of the NPA’s 41st anniversary.

“In an arrogantly joyful mood, the Local Terrorist Front-15 of the New People’s Army claims that they killed six soldiers in a clash early morning of March 28 in Baganga town in Davao Oriental. The claim is a show of unparalleled arrogance and disregard to human lives as they rejoice with every individual they murdered be it a soldier or an innocent civilian whom they have victimized,” Captain Emmanuel Garcia, a spokesman for the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, told the Mindanao Examiner.

He said one soldier Private First Class Ulysses Dedumo was killed in the attack.

“The 10th Infantry Division condoles with the family of the slain soldier who was doing his job and laid down his life in service to our people in Baganga,” the army spokesman said, adding, another soldier was wounded in the fighting and is recuperating at a military hospital in Davao City.

“The erroneous, malicious and preposterous claim of LTF-15 mirrors their cunning and sly methods of deceiving our people in every avenue for their own selfish aims in projecting a position of strength but in truth is a weakness masked by their massive crimes and atrocities against the people.”

“While the communists rejoice in every death of our countrymen brought by their violent ways, the true soldiers of the people mourn in every life taken from this Earth whether it is a soldier, plain civilian or an NPA. We at the 10th Infantry Division and the whole Armed Forces of the Philippines do not celebrate the death of anyone even that of an NPA,” Garcia said, adding “we value life even that of the opponent as our own and we will do whatever it takes to preserve the life of any person even at the risk of laying down our own while the terrorists disregard it by leaving their comrades in the heat of battles repeatedly in the past.”

The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines which has been fighting for decades to overthrow the democratic government and put up a Maoist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)