Police investigators cordon off the area in Sitio Aurora, Barangay Santo Niño, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon, where the NPA attacked a paramilitary detachment and burned vehicles on Tuesday night, May 28, 2019. PHOTO courtesy of Menzie Montes
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Military and police forces foiled an attack carried out by a group of armed individuals believed to be New People’s Army (NPA) in a Bukidnon town on Tuesday night, May 28, police said Wednesday.
Colonel Surki Sereñas, the spokesperson of the Police Regional Office in Northern Mindanao (PRO-10), said the Manolo Fortich municipal police station was tipped off by a concerned citizen that the guerrillas were about to stage an offensive in Sitio Aurora, Barangay Santo Niño.
“The information was received at around 11 o’clock in the evening and joint PNP and [Armed Forces of the Philippines] troops immediately responded,” Sereñas said.
A few minutes later, a firefight ensued just as the NPA fired at a Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (Cafgu) detachment in the area, Sereñas said, quoting a report by Manolo Fortich police chief Lieutenant Colonel Duphar Chris Cuaresma.
No one was hurt in the encounter.
Sereñas said there were about a hundred attackers who stormed the Cafgu detachment.
He said the responding soldiers and policemen did not catch any of the retreating communist fighters but the NPA members burned down several vehicles, including an Isuzu Elf truck, a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck, two motorcycles, a tricab, as they retreated.
Sereñas said investigators looked at several angles as to why the vehicles were burned.
He said it was either the vehicles belonged to the NPAs and they intentionally set them on fire as they made their retreat or they were owned by the palm oil plantation farmers where the encounter took place.
“If the vehicles were owned by the farmers, it was possible that they were also the target of the attack,” Sereñas said.
He said the municipal police were still tracing the registration records of the burned vehicles.