Troops kill NPA commander; capture rebel base in Mindanao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 15, 2008) – Philippine troops killed a communist rebel commander in a clash in the southern region of Mindanao, officials said Monday.

Officials said soldiers also overran a rebel base of the New People's Army in the village of Tamayong in Calinan district in Davao City.

The weekend fighting killed Faustino Libot, leader of an NPA assassination unit called Sparrow, said Col. Roland Baustista, spokesman for the Army's 10th Infantry Division.

"Troops killed Libot in the fighting in Calinan and we recovered his M16 rifle. We also captured an NPA rebel base in the area," he said.

Baustista said the operation against the NPA still continue in the outskirts of Davao City, where the rebels are active.

The NPA is holding First Lieutenant Vicente Cammayo since November 7 after rebel forces attacked his unit and killed two soldiers and a government militia in a fierce firefight in Casoon village in the town of Monkayo in Compostela Valley province.

Aside from Cammayo, the rebels also captured Police Officer 3 Eduardo Tumol, a member of the 1105th Provincial Mobile Group, who was arrested on November 5 by the NPA at a checkpoint in the village of Baogo in Davao Oriental's Caraga town.

The NPA said both Cammayo and Tumol are being investigated for possible human rights violations and other crimes related to the operations of the Special Forces and the Provincial Mobile Group in Mindanao.

The NPA, armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), is fighting the government the past four decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. Peace talks between Manila and the CPP-NPA collapsed in 2004 after both sides failed to sign an agreement ending hostilities in the countryside. (Mindanao Examiner)

NPA Kills 2 Cops In Southern Philippines

SURIGAO (Mindanao Examiner / 09 Mar) - Two policemen were killed in an attack by suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in the southern Philippines, officials said.

Officials said the cops were eating their meals at market area in the town of Lianga in Surigao province when NPA gunmen shot them late Wednesday.

No groups or individual claimed responsibility for the attack, but the police blamed the killings to the hit squad Sparrow Unit. The rebels also carted away the policemen’s M16 automatic rifles before escaping, officials said.

A Philippine official earlier said the NPA rebels were also plotting to assassinate President Gloria Arroyo. Secy. Norberto Gonzales, Arroyo’s security adviser, said the rebels also marked him for death.

But rebel spokesman Gregorio Rosal denied the report and said it was a "desperate attempt to forage worn-out spin materials for use in his (Gonzales) obsessive Red-baiting and dirty legal scheming."

“This is the nth time that Gonzales has concocted this same spin of an 'assassination' plot against himself and his fascist boss. He is repeating the same babble because he has run out of things to hurl against NDFP chief political consultant Jose Ma. Sison and other progressive leaders."

"This renewed psywar offensive is nothing but a cheap attempt to carry out more fascist measures to persecute Prof. Sison and derail the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the NDFP," Rosal said in a statement posted Friday on the website of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on this URL: http://www.philippinerevolution.net.

The Philippine military also implicated CPP chief Jose Maria Sison in the alleged assassination plot. Sison has been living in exile in The Netherlands. The NPA is the armed wing of the CPP. (Romy Bwaga and Juan Magtanggol)