ANGELES CITY – The New People’s Army (NPA) has vowed continuing offensives in Aurora province as it ambushed last Saturday the commander of the Army’s 48th infantry batallion and his convoy, a day after it attacked a military detachment manned by 20 soldiers in Barangay Diteki in San Luis town in the province.
In a statement released to local media, Rowena Servante, spokesperson of the NPA’s Domingo Erlano Command in Aurora, claimed one 1st Lt. Moreno whom she identified as the intelligence officer of the 48th IB, was killed when the NPA ambushed his convoy headed by batallion commander Lt. Col. Kurt Decapia in Barangay Diteki in San Luis, Aurora at about 9:10 a.m. last Aug. 13.
Servante said that ambush last Friday was the fourth offensive held by the NPA in a month’s time.
In a telephone interview with Punto, however, 48th IB commander Lt. Col. Kurt Decapia denied any soldier was hurt or killed during the ambush.
He even turned over his phone to one who identified himself intelligence officer 1st Lt. Dennis Moreno who said he was amused by allegations he was killed.
“I am very much alive and unhurt,” he stressed.
Decapia, however, confirmed the ambush and the other recent NPA offensives against the military.
Servate said that only last Friday, the NPA also attacked a barangay hall being used as detachment by some 20 soldiers also from the 48th IB in Diteki. She did not cite any injury or fatality in the attack.
Servante said that at about 9:10 a.m. Saturday, the NPA blasted explosives as a convoy of the 48th IB passed by in Diteki, blowing up a truck boarded by Moreno. The blast, she said, was followed by a rain of bullets from the ambushers.
The convoy also consisted of a V 150 armored personnel carrier and another truck boarded by Decapia, she said.
Decapia said, however, that the explosion was insignificant and did not cause any injury. “The ‘super lolo’ firecracker was even more powerful,” he claimed.
Servante said the convoy, which was headed back to its base in the capital town of Baler after lending support to the other soldiers whose detachment was attacked the previous day.
The ambush compelled the soldiers to draw back towards Diteki, she added.
She said retaliating soldiers later arrested civilians identified as Arthur Friginal, Arnel Arevalo, Ulot Mariano, Nene Genes and Udit Wegan who were accused of being NPA members. They were released later, she added.
Retaliating military operatives, she said, later asked residents of Sitio Katipunan to leave their homes and drove away others engaged in “kaingin” in Barangay Dimatuba, both also in San Luis.
Servante said the series of recent NPA offensives disproved military claim that it has weeded out the rebels in Aurora. In the last year of the Arroyo administration, Nolcom declared the province as being free from NPA insurgents.
Earlier offensives included the attacks against soldiers in Barangay Dierabasin in Dipaculao last July 10 and the attack on a detachment for militiamen in Sitio Dimutol in Barangay Dianawn in Ma. Aurora, she recalled.
“These offensives were responses of local folk decrying abuses by the military as well as the ill effects of the APECO project,” Servando said.
Last June, a fact- finding group concluded its week-long mission in Casiguran, Aurora and expressed fears over the fate of hundreds of families now allegedly being harassed and unjustly displaced by projects lined up under Republic Act 10083 or the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Act (APECO).
Joseph Canlas, chairman of the Alyansang Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luson (AMGL), said no less than 5,430 farmers holding Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA) , Certificate of Land Transfer (CLT), Emancipation Patents (EP) and Integrated Social Forestry (ISF) certificates, are being coerced into selling their lands for projects amid military pressure.
Canlas’ group also cited alleged land grabbing and status conversion of private lands, from being agricultural to industrial.
