The NPA is the armed unit of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and has been waging an insurgency since 1969. AFP FILE PHOTO
DAVAO CITY – Communist rebels took six people hostage and confiscated firearms, set off two explosives including one that wounded six soldiers and forcibly took away several vehicles in at least four attacks in a span of 24 hours in the provinces of North Cotabato and Davao del Norte, the military said Tuesday.
The NPA, which had been quick in sending statements about its attacks in the past, remained silent as of Tuesday afternoon.
Colonel Leopoldo Galon, spokesperson of the military’s 5th civil-military affairs office here, said that early Monday, communist rebels flagged down motorists in Barangay (village) New Israel in Makilala, North Cotabato, and seized six vans. The rebels did not harm the van drivers and set them free, he said.
Galon said that around 8 p.m. Monday, about 15 rebels stormed the office of the Dasia Security Agency, a leading security firm in Southern Mindanao, in Orange Valley in Barangay Magugpo South in Tagum City.
He said the rebels, who were clad in police uniforms, gained entry to the Dasia office after introducing themselves as policemen. Galon said that after disarming the guards, the rebels ransacked every nook and corner of the office and then fled with six hostages, including a child, in tow.
Superintendent Epe Rillo, Tagum City police chief, said the rebels who raided the Dasia office also took with them an undetermined number of firearms.
Rillo said the rebels pretended to be anti-narcotics agents tasked to check on information that illegal drugs were being hidden inside the Dasia office.
“Aside from weapons, the armed intruders also commandeered three armored vans owned by the security agency and took four Dasia employees, as well as the daughter and wife of one of the company’s workers, as hostages as they fled,” he said.
Senior Superintendent Camilo Cascolan, Compostela Valley police chief, said the Dasia armored vehicles that some of rebels used as getaway vehicles were later recovered in a village in Maco, Compostela Valley around 7 a.m. Tuesday.
“There have been no reports as to the whereabouts of the abducted victims,” he said.
Cascolan said because the armored vans had been recovered in Compostela Valley, he directed all police chiefs in the province to conduct operations to search for and rescue of the hostages.
Galon said an hour before the three Dasia armored vehicles were found, six soldiers were injured when a military truck hit a landmine in Tagum City’s Barangay Magdum around 6 a.m. Some civilians, including one who was also injured, had hitched a ride on the truck, he said.
Lt. Vilma Mojado of the 10th civil-military operations battalion said the injured soldiers and the civilian, whom she did not identify, were being treated at a hospital in Tagum City for shrapnel injuries.
Mojado said an hour after the Magdum blast, NPA rebels also set off another land mine in the neighboring village of Tagmanok but no casualties were reported in the second blast.