The police officers of Cagayan’s Special Action Force were riding in an Isuzu Elf truck en route to a hospital in Allacapan town in Cagayan when they were ambushed at 8:30 a.m. on Monday.
Seven other policemen who fought back were wounded.
Officials said the surviving policemen had described encountering almost unending gunfire before the communist New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas withdrew.
“An improvised bomb was first exploded as the vehicle reached a bend on the dirt road, then the gunmen opened fire from an elevated portion of the roadside,” Senior Supt. Gregorio Lim, Cagayan provincial police director, said in a phone interview.
The attackers set off the bomb using a 25-meter-long detonation cord as the police truck came, Lim said. “Our men managed to fight back but they were just heavily outnumbered,” he said.
The blast was so powerful it completely destroyed the truck and mangled the victims’ bodies, a picture of the scene showed.
It was the second major attack by insurgents on government forces in the past two days.
On Saturday, seven Marines were killed when they ran into a gang of Abu Sayyaf bandits in Patikul, Sulu province, setting off an exchange of fire. Seven of the bandits were killed while nine other Marines were wounded in the clash.
The 15-member team of the 24th Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police were on their way to Allapacan to undergo an electrocardiogram procedure, according to Inspector Cesar Orlanes, spokesman of the Cagayan provincial police office.
He said the policemen were on a marked PNP vehicle when the rebels set off the landmine placed in the middle of the road at the boundary of Barangay (village) Cataran and Barangay Centro West.
“After the rebels detonated the landmine, they opened fire,” Orlanes told the Inquirer by phone. “The initial report stated that the rebels placed the landmine in the middle of the road.”
Police casualties
Police identified the fatalities as Police Officers 2 Dexter Cubilla, Angelbert Mateo, Elmark Rodney Pinated, Jonnel Bowat and Ronald Castulo, Police Officers 1 Erick Brioso and Jerome Sanchez and PO3 Vladimir Tabarejo.
Wounded were Police Officers 2 Ronald Gomez, Geopano Adangui, Ricky Monay, Jeofrey Liagao Amiligan and Jeofrey Elasco, and Police Officers 1 Ephraim Dolete and Ryan Asunio.
Orlanes said communist insurgents were known to operate in the area where the attack occurred. He said government forces also engaged NPA rebels in a firefight in Allapacan three months ago.
The rebels made off with four special operations assault rifles, one M-16 assault rifle and seven short firearms of the policemen before fleeing to a mountainous village, he said.
“Our troops are still in the area to pursue the rebels,” Orlanes said.
Chief Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr., PNP spokesman, said about 30 members of the NPA’s Danilo Ben Command took part in the ambush. Elements of the Army’s 21st Infantry Brigade were deployed to help pursue the rebels.
Cerbo said the PNP had ordered the police nationwide, particularly in areas where NPA rebels operate, to be extra-cautious about their movements in the wake of the attack.
“We remind our police units to ensure their operational readiness, be security-conscious and observe extra precaution when moving in remote areas,” Cerbo said in a news briefing at Camp Crame.
Orlanes said the policemen were not on patrol operations when they were ambushed. “They were wearing police athletic uniforms and were supposed to see a PNP medical team to undergo an ECG,” he said.
Hot pursuit
Asked if the PNP would look into possible operational lapses, Cerbo said: “Right now, that is not our priority. Our focus is to secure our men on the field and conduct hot-pursuit operations to arrest those responsible for the ambush.”
The ambush site was littered with propaganda flyers extolling the Danilo Ben Command.
“I have yet to read the contents of those flyers to find out what could be the issues that they were raising which prompted them to launch this attack,’’ Lim said.
The area where the policemen were attacked is 2 kilometers from the Allacapan police station, according to Lt. Gen. Anthony Alcantara, who heads the Northern Luzon Command.
The ambush was the second violent incident in Allacapan in three weeks. On April 27, before the May 13 elections, six armed men burned a gasoline tanker along the national highway. The tanker was loaded with gasoline worth P1.3 million. The tanker’s driver was unhurt.
Hit-and-run attacks
Allacapan is a third-class town with an average annual income of between P35 million and P45 million, and a population of 29,821 people, based on the 2010 census.
Hit-and-run attacks are common in the 44-year Marxist insurgency, which has claimed more than 120,000 lives at least in the past four decades.
Security forces have been stretched thin fighting communist rebels while also battling the Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines.
The government recently suspended peace talks with the communists brokered by Norway after the rebels rejected an immediate ceasefire.
The NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.—With a report from AP