Local residents of Tarangnan town finds remains of a male person on Thursday morning, three days after government troops and suspected communist rebels figured in a firefight at waters off Samar on Monday. (Screengrab of video from the Armed Forces of the Philippines).
MANILA, Philippines — Three days after government troops and suspected communist rebels figured in a firefight at waters off Samar, another set of human remains were found floating near the Islet of Libacun Gute in Tarangnan town in the same province, the Armed Forces of the Philippines reported on Friday.
The human remains belonged to a male fatality and were found by local town residents on Thursday morning.
On Tuesday, local fishermen also found the wreckage of a motorized boat and the remains of a woman off the coast of Tarangnan town.
Joint Task Force Storm Commander Major General Edgardo De Leon said the total number of confirmed fatalities could climb as they receive more reports of sightings of human remains.
“In fact, as of this time, we got another information through social media that two more floating human remains were sighted, and I am sending a retrieval team to check. If that is true, then we would have accounted for four NPA terrorists dead in an off-shore encounter,” De Leon said in a statement.
Scene of the crime operation (SOCO) authorities said that it would take some time to establish the identities of remains as the samples collected for DNA testing would require a match from a relative.
The military said that none of the suspected rebels’ relatives had come to identify them.
On Monday, the AFP said that an explosion ensued after authorities and a group aboard a motorized boat figured in a firefight south of Buri Island in Catbalogan City, Samar.
De Leon previously said they could not establish if spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon — two ranking leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) — were among those on board the boat.