PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga del Sur –– Two communist guerrillas were killed and three people wounded in a clash between New People’s Army (NPA) rebels and government soldiers in Tigbao town, Zamboanga del Sur Thursday, April 22.
Lt. Col. Jo-ar Herrera, commander of the Army’s 53rd Infantry Battalion, said they sent troops to Barangay Guinlin after community residents reported the presence of several armed men.
There, the soldiers clashed with six NPA guerrillas that resulted in the killing of two rebels identified only as Nathan and Tito, and the wounding of a certain Nanang, who was rushed to the military station hospital in Labangan town.
Herrera said the NPA fighters who figured in the clash were remnants of the group’s Main Regional Guerrilla Unit.
Soldiers rushed two wounded civilians to the nearest hospital in the town for treatment.
Herrera said Nathan, who was around 60 years old, was one of the few old guerrillas operating in Western Mindanao. He used to be the secretary of a guerrilla front and was deputy secretary of the Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines.