By Jennifer P. Rendon
Nine days after a botched attempt to “bomb” police troops in Janiuay town, Iloilo, alleged members of the New People’s Army (NPA) resorted to an improvised explosive device (IED) in attacking police officers in nearby Lambunao town.
The incident wounded Master Sergeant Christopher Losbañez, who was hit by shrapnel on his hand.
An 8-man team from Lambunao Police Station was navigating a downhill portion in Barangay Pughanan, Lambunao, when the IED exploded. The blast hit the left part of the vehicle.
The driver lost control of the patrol which plunged into a shallow ravine.
Colonel Gilbert Gorero, Iloilo police chief, said the rebels positioned in a burrow they dug by the roadside.
But they were not able to properly aim their shots at the police officers, who immediately scampered out of the vehicle.
Instead, members of the 12th Infantry Battalion who were just around 15 meters from the explosion site immediately went to the high ground and fired at the NPA’s lair.
The rebels were forced to retreat.
The Lambunao police went to the area to investigate an encounter that happened 5 p.m. of March 11 at Panuran village between 12IB troops and around seven rebels from the NPA’s Baloy Platoon.
The soldiers were in the area to conduct Community Support Program (CSP) and secure construction equipment at Panuran.
Thursday’s firefight only lasted for 2 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, a separate team from the 12th IB engaged the same groups of rebels who were fleeing to Barangay Agcarope, Janiuay. The exchange of fire lasted 10 minutes.
Gorero said that the soldiers who immediately responded following the IED explosion on Friday were the team that has been conducting hot pursuit operations against the rebels.
But he lamented that the area where the explosion happened was near to the homes of some civilians.
“And the IED could have hurt anyone – Army soldiers, police operatives, or even civilians,” he said.
Gorero said he was outraged by the atrocities committed by the communist rebels.
“The government is offering them opportunities and support to reform their lives, but they instead challenge the government with the use of violence,” he said, as he cited that the PNP, together with the AFP, will not waver in the war against insurgency.
On March 3, suspected NPAs also planted a landmine at Barangay Panuran, Janiuay, Iloilo. No one was hurt during the explosion.
Meanwhile, Major Cenon Pancito III, Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division spokesperson, said the “CPP-NPA-NDF’s acts of using, stockpiling, transporting and producing land mines is a clear violation of RA 9851 which penalizes as a war crime the employment of means of warfare prohibited under international law, such as weapons, projectiles, materials and methods of warfare that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate when inflicted on soldiers and civilians.”
Pancito said the use of landmines violated the Mine Ban Treaty, otherwise known as the Ottawa Convention, which was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Oslo on 18 September 1997 and signed by 122 countries in Ottawa, Canada on 3 December 1997.
