Rebels say cops in drugs

PNP DIRECTOR GENERAL Alan Purisima visits the wake of policemen slain during an NPA raid in Matanao, Davao City. ORLANDO B. DINOY/INQUIRER MINDANAO

DAVAO CITY—Communist guerrillas owned up to the attack on a police station in Davao del Sur that killed two policemen, saying the province’s police force had become a guerrilla target because of its involvement in the illegal drug trade.

But Director General Alan Purisima, chief of the Philippine National Police, quickly dismissed the guerrilla claim.

‘Coddlers’

In a statement sent to Inquirer, Dencio Madrigal, spokesperson of the Valentine Palamine Command of the New People’s Army (NPA), said police officers and men of the Davao del Sur PNP “are notorious coddlers of illegal drug pushers and other criminal syndicates.”

“They are, thus, legitimate targets of the people’s army at any time of the year,” said the statement.

Purisima, however, branded the guerrilla statement as propaganda. “Do not believe them,” said Purisima in an interview after he handed posthumous awards and financial assistance to families of the two policemen killed in the NPA raid on the police station in Matanao town.

Propagandists

“They are just fabricating a propaganda and they are good propagandists,” said Purisima of the NPA statement.

Aside from alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade, the guerrillas also accused the provincial police force of serving as a security agency for mining companies.

The raid by the NPA on the Matanao police station on March 10, said the NPA statement, “demonstrates the NPA’s determination to punish AFP and PNP units operating in Davao del Sur and its boundaries.”

It said the Army’s 39th Infantry Battalion serves as a security force for a foreign mining company “poised to continue to exploit nearly 100,000 hectares of mineral rich ancestral lands of lumad B’laan and peasants in the region.”

Land mine explosion

The statement added that soldiers and policemen in Matanao and other Davao del Sur towns “deserved to be disarmed and punished because in their defense of mining, they have killed, injured, discharged aerial bombs, all part of their reign of terror against the lumad and settlers who have fiercely battled mining since 1992.”

Two policemen were killed and three others were wounded in the NPA raid on the Matanao police station. Seven soldiers were also killed in a land mine explosion as they tried to run after the guerrillas involved in the raid.

9 civilians

Madrigal, in the NPA statement, said police indiscriminately arrested nine civilians who were on their way to a village fiesta in Matanao, accusing them of involvement in the raid and of being members of the NPA.

The NPA identified the civilians as Renante Urot, Joey Alberca, Rufoboy Gama, Laudemer Gama, Noel Morangit, Roger Natonton, Julio Sales, John Rey Pabillo and Christopher Sales. Orlando B. Dinoy, Inquirer Mindanao