Manila: Insurgents in various parts of the country continue their attacks on government installations and private companies operating in Davao Peninsula and Luzon, despite efforts by both sides to forge a peace covenant.
Reports reaching Manila said a police officer was killed in Mandella, Quirino province in northeast Philippines when some 100 New Peoples’ Army (NPA) guerrillas descended on their police station on the evening of April 29.
Guerrillas from the NPAs’ Venerando Villacillo Command carried out the attack to spring one of their captured comrades.
According to Senior Superintendent Merwin Cuarteros, Police Officer 2 Jerome Cardenas was killed in the attack while two other policemen were held hostage by the retreating guerrillas. The two captured lawmen were eventually released by the guerrillas after several hours.
The attackers arrived in the station aboard several vehicles.
Earlier the dame day in Davao Peninsula, NPAs attacked three separate targets in Davao City and Panabo City.
The insurgents ransacked a farm owned by the Lorenzo family in the village of Pangyan and burnt down the Lapanday Box Plant in the village of Mandug as well as the Macondray Plastic Plant in the village of Tapore in Panabo City.
The three facilities employ hundreds of people and while no workers were killed in the attack, the incident left some of them without jobs. A fishmonger was also injured in a blast from an improvised explosive device that the rebels detonated to cover their retreat.
In a statement, Davao City Mayor Sara “Inday” Duterte slammed the rebels for the attack.
“We condemn these acts committed by a group that pretends to champion social justice and equality. With its history of carrying out atrocities and its continued penchant for lawlessness and bloodbath, the NPA is an organisation that is not worthy of our trust and respect,” Inday said.
Inday, eldest daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, added that the NPA attack was “an act of terrorism.”
“I take what happened as a personal insult especially because the local government of Davao City has been supportive of the peace negotiations between the national government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the political umbrella that covers the armed guerrilla movement. And because I have repeatedly offered to talk peace with the members of the NPA within Davao City,” she said.
In a separate statement, she referred to the NPA rebels as “bumbling idiots.”
The attack was not the first time that the NPA had carried out attacks while peace negotiations are being observed in March, the insurgents carried out similar coordinated assaults on private businesses as well as police stations.
The national government has yet to issue a statement on the matter but the administration of President Duterte had said before that peace negotiations with communist rebels are among his leadership’s priorities.
