NPA holding five ‘prisoners of war’ in Agusan del Sur

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—The New People’s Army said Saturday  it was holding five “prisoners of war” but denied it had taken a sixth hostage during a raid on a village in the municipality of Loreto in Agusan del Sur province last Thursday as the military had earlier reported.

In a statement e-mailed to the Inquirer, Aris Francisco, the spokesman of the NPA unit operating in Agusan del Sur and nearby provinces, said the hostages were  government-backed militiamen although four of them served as village officials and were standing for re-election in the October 28 barangay elections.

Francisco said the NPA’s prisoners were taken during a raid the rebels carried last Thursday on a detachment of a paramilitary unit supervised by the Philippine Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Mansanitas.

The raiders “captured at the village center five paramilitary forces, four of whom were armed village officials, and confiscated two shotgun rifles and one .357 revolver,” he said.

Francisco identified the hostages as Mansanitas barangay chairman Lito Andalique, barangay council members Marvin Bantuasan, Crisanto Piodos, and Balaba Andalique; and militiaman Pepe Subla.

Francisco said also that the rebels “thwarted a platoon of reinforcement forces [from] the 26th IB in a gunfight that yielded at least five fatalities on the military side.”

He claimed that the Eastern Mindanao Command, which is based in Davao, “responded by sending two military helicopters that dropped 14 bombs in the community” and that the helicopter crews “later secured their fatalities.”

Lieutenant General Rainier Cruz III, Eastmincom commander, reported on Friday that the rebels had abducted six barangay candidates in Loreto but identified the village concerned as Barangay Sabud.

The names given by Cruz of those abducted were similar to the names provided by Francisco but had one extra name, that of Gina Bantuasan. It was not clear, however, if she was related to the other Bantuasan or what had become of her.

The military also denied that soldiers were killed in an encounter with rebels. Cruz said Friday that one soldier was wounded in a clash with the a 30-strong band of rebels that soldiers pursued following Thursday’s raid.

Cruz said the abduction was the NPA’s way of trying to influence the outcome of the barangay elections, by harassing candidates it did not support or who had refused to pay the rebels money in exchange for “permits to campaign” in rebel-influenced areas.

Francisco, the rebel spokesman,  said Thursday’s raid was part of the NPA’s tactical offensive “against a fascist Army unit and its paramilitary machinery responsible for butchering two peasant leaders — Gabriel Alindao and Benjie Planos of the peasant group Kahugpungan Alang sa Kalambuan sa Kauswagan or Kasaka — detaining and torturing two civilian Lumad minors, and conducting massive harassment and counter-revolutionary drive against the peasant masses in Loreto, Agusan del Sur.”

Francisco said the hostages were “legitimate targets of the NPA.”

“The POWs are psychological warfare agents, who banned the masses from going to their farms and forcing them to remain at the village centers, in a blatant attempt to control their movement. These POWs have campaigned hard against the NPAs, harassed peasant leaders, and strongly endorsed the entry of palm oil and mining projects — projects that will eventually dislocate the masses and deprive Lumad of their ancestral domain,” he said.

Francisco said the five hostages were being accorded rights as POWs and their health and safety were assured. He did not say, however,  what the NPA intended to do with them.

In the past, the rebels would invariably subject its captives to trial for “crimes against the people.”  In some instances, the convicts were executed but in others they were released unharmed “on humanitarian grounds.”