LEGAZPI CITY – The body of an alleged communist rebel was found Saturday night near the site where state forces and suspected the New People’s Army fighters clashed in Lagonoy, Camarines Sur.
Police Colonel Roderico Roy Jr., Camarines Sur police chief, said in a report that at around 9 p.m. on Saturday, said the body of an unidentified man with a gunshot wound to the stomach was found in Sitio Pagsimbugan in Barangay Mapid.
Almost an hour earlier, the local police force and the 83rd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army were on patrol in Barangay Olas, which is only about a kilometer away from the village of Mapid, when they encountered some 15 suspected NPA rebels.
No one was hurt on the government side.
Police said another body of a suspected rebel was found in the encounter site. The fatality was later identified as Pedro San Juan Jr., 65, a former village secretary in Barangay Sibobo in Calabanga, Camarines Sur.
Recovered from the encounter site were several firearms and documents.