DAVAO CITY—Soldiers aborted the ambush of two barangay officials here, while a gunbattle ensued in Compostela Valley over the weekend as the government military continued to throw the spotlight of its main counterinsurgency operation in the Davao region.
The Army’s 10th Infantry Division said soldiers trailing two barangay officials traveling on the same remote road in Barangay Alambre of Toril District here aborted the ambush when they engaged suspected New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas.
The guerrillas already started the ambush when Barangay Daliaon Chairman Generoso Bacalso and Kagawad Ducris Daug passed along a dusty road in Barangay Alambre at about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. They were riding on a motorcycle going to downtown Toril.
Soldiers from the Army’s 84th Infantry Battalion, who were also traveling on the same road, rescued the beleaguered officials and claimed to have inflicted casualties on the NPAs.
The Army said the ambush party withdrew but left behind a dead fighter and an M653 rifle popularly known as a Baby Armalite. It said the soldiers engaged the unit from Guerrilla Front 54 of the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee.
The Army said Bacalso sustained a gunshot wound at his left hand, while Daug managed to escape.
Meanwhile, in Compostela Valley, soldiers of the 28th IB engaged a unit of the NPA’s Guerilla Front 27 in Sitio New Cebu, Barangay Magcagong, of Maragusan town at noontime on Saturday.
The encounter lasted 20 minutes but the guerrillas withdrew, and left one improvised explosive device, an electrical wire 30 meters long and several spent shells of different rifles.
In Sitio Maganting, Barangay Napnapan, Pantukan town of the same province, soldiers of the 46th IB arrested five alleged NPAs on Friday afternoon after the soldiers caught them allegedly laying down roadside bombs.
The battalion identified the arrested persons as: Glen Cañete, Jutam Calig-unan, Arnel Angkeles, Jonel Calig-unan and Eric Beloy. The men were turned over to the police for investigation and the filing of charges.
1 comment
I don’t think “abort” is the right word here. “Abort” implies that stopping comes from the doer or initiator of the action being stopped. In other words, the only person who can abort an action is the person who initiated the action or part of the situation, For example, in ‘Abort the mission” the command may be from an external source, but the option to follow it or not still depends on the players or initiator of the action.