A VICE commanding officer of the New People’s Army (NPA) was killed after a series of gun battles with troops of the 88th Infantry Battalion in the hinterland barangays of Nakabuklad of San Fernando and Minungan of Quezon in Bukidnon on Oct. 6 and 9.
Meanwhile, a soldier was also wounded after he was hit by an improvised explosive device.
The slain rebel was identified as Loloy Gayuran Dal-anay, the vice commanding officer of Platoon 1, Guerrilla Front Malayag, Sub-Regional Command 2, Northern Mindanao Regional Committee.
Capt. Norven Jay Garcia, the civil-military operations officer of the 88th IB, said that the rebel was hastily buried by his comrades on a shallow grave not far from the encounter site.
For now, the body of the slain rebel was later turned over to the local government unit of San Fernando.
The first encounter lasted for about ten minutes at the vicinity of Mt. Miyangki, Sitio Supon, Nagkabuklad at around 1 p.m. on Oct. 6. Soldiers encountered 20 members of NPA under the leadership of alias Migs.
Meanwhile, government troops also encountered more or less 30 NPAs in the hinterland area of Minungan on Oct 9 at around 8:55 am.
The firefight lasted for about 15 minutes. While the government troops were scouring the vicinity of the encounter site, another gun battle transpired at around 12:33 p.m. on the same day. The exchange of gunfire lasted for another 20 minutes and resulted in the injury to the soldier.
The soldier was airlifted to Camp Evangelista Station Hospital in Cagayan de Oro for medical attention and he is now stable.
Government troops recovered an anti-personnel landmine, ammunition, detonating wires, assorted medicine, and personal belongings of the NPAs at the sites.
Lt. Col. Franklin F. Fabic, commanding officer of the 88IB said, “It is with sadness that another Filipino who was deceived by misleading ideals of the communist terrorist died in one of the encounters.”
The battalion commander further said that the information provided by the locals to the government troops led to these engagements.
“These manifest the strong support of local communities to the efforts of the government in ending the local communist armed conflict in the area,” he added.
