NPA VOWS MORE ATTACKS VS. AFP; DENIES HAND IN COMPOSTELA VALLEY GRENADE BLAST

The communist New People’s Army (NPA) owned up the raid on a town hall in Davao Oriental, but fingered the military in a grenade blast in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley province that killed 3 people and wounded 12 others last week.

“Red fighters of the 3rd Pulang Bagani Company of the Merardo Arce Command-New People’s Army disarmed the Philippine National Police Provincial Mobile Group (PMG) municipal station in Banaybanay, Davao Oriental and seized 18 firearms, including eight M16 Armalite rifles and more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition. Five (5) PNP personnel surrendered while three (3) others fled. After their surrender, they were treated as hor’s de combat in accordance with International Humanitarian Law,” said in a statement Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesman, of the NPA Merardo Arce Command in Southern Mindanao.

“The widespread and intensive tactical offensives are hitting Gloria Arroyo’s armed forces almost at will, with successive strikes to its head and blows to its body. In spite of the Eastern Mindanao Command’s troop build-up in the region, they remain out-witted and out-maneuvered by the people’s guerrilla army.

As the AFP/PNP encroach on the territories of the People’s Democratic Government in the countryside, conduct all-out repression against the peasants and lumads and serve as mercenary protectors of imperialist and local big business, they face deadly consequences of their fascist aggression. The NPA will inflict mounting casualties, seize more arms and accelerate the building of more NPA platoons. In the last three (3) months alone, units of the Merardo Arce Command already seized high-powered rifles that fully armed two (2) new NPA platoons.

The series of tactical offensives are meant to punish the Arroyo regime for its despicable crimes of large-scale corruption, imperialist plunder and fascist atrocities on the people. The objective of her US-directed Oplan Bantay Laya II all-out war is obviously exposed as mission impossible.”

The grenade blast in Compostela Valley showed how desperate is the military in tagging the rebels as behind the attack.

Sanchez said the “AFP’s level of desperation has increased a notch higher. By making a baseless allegation against the New People’s Army in regard to the grenade throwing incident in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley which caused the death of three civilians and wounded several others, the AFP is merely exposing its frustrations owing to its failures and defeats in the field.”

“The revolutionary forces condemn this criminal attack against civilians. We are verifying reports that intelligence operatives of the AFP are behind this. Reeling from the devastation suffered by the newly deployed 3rd Special Forces Battalion after the successful partisan operation in the same town days before the grenade blast, they now wish to counter by attacking innocent people and pinning the blame on the NPA. They did this many times in the past, the latest of which was the murder of Datu Dominador Diarog in Sitio Kahusayan, Brgy. Manuel Guianga in Davao City, perpetrated by the armed group of Apollo Quiboloy, the Task Force Davao and the 73rd Infantry Battalion but which they blamed on the NPA.

Another proof of the AFP’s desperation is its tale about the supposed death of one NPA guerrila and retrieval of one (1) M-14 rifle in Brgy. Mayaon, Montevista, Compostela Valley. There is no tinge of truth to this. The enemy is just manufacturing stories to divert attention from the successive and successful tactical offensives by the NPA,” said Sanchez.