Manila:Communist rebels released six people, including a 10-year old girl, who were held hostage Monday night, in the southern Philippines, a local paper said.
Members of the New People’s Army (NPA) released the hostage-victims to a Catholic priest in Maco, Compostela Valley in Mindanao, on Wednesday night, Superintendent Epe Rillo, police chief of Tagum police, told the Inquirer.
They were held hostage during a raid on Dasia Security Agency.
Also released were Terecio Laplana, manager of Dasia Security Agency; his wife Concepcion; and their daughter. They were not harmed, said Rillo.
Also on Monday, NPA members flagged down six vans, held the drivers and took away the vehicles in North Cotabato in the south.
Five soldiers and a civilian were wounded when an Army truck hit a landmine that was set by the NPA on the Tagum-Agusan highway in Magdum village, also on Monday.
The attacks seemed coordinated, said Rillo.
The NPA is the armed wing of the 44-year old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
The Philippine government and the communist National Democratic Front (NDF) have been holding on and off peace talks since 1992.
The NDF refused to return to negotiating table in 2004, when the Philippine government allowed the United States and the European Union to include the CPP-NPA in the list of foreign terror groups.
Since then informal talks were held. In 2010, formal talks resumed in Europe, but were stalled anew. The Philippine government refused to give in to the NDF’s demand or the release of political prisoners who were peace consultants.
The NDF also refused to the government’s call for the forging of a ceasefire agreement, adding it would be tantamount to giving up arms.
The 5,000-strong Maoist-inspired NPA had 20,000 armed men in the 70s.
The CPP-NPA controls several far-flung red zones nationwide.
It has been accused of extorting revolutionary taxes from businessmen, and demanding payment of permit to campaign from politicians prior to
the recently concluded mid-term polls.
