NPA releases remaining hostages in Compostela Valley

Video by INQUIRER.net’s Ryan Leagogo

MANILA, Philippines—New People’s Army guerrillas in Compostela Valley released three more hostages Monday after they freed 36 others Sunday.

The 39 are villagers from Mahayahay in Compostela Valley  who were seized by insurgents last Saturday, the military said.

Those released Monday  are three male adults, Major General Domingo Tutaan, Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman, said.

Major General Domingo Tutaan. RYAN LEAGOGO/INQUIRER.net

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Logico, commander of the Philippine Army’s 66th Infantry Battalion, said that the three men were released after his troops surrounded the area where the rebels held them as hostages in Barangay (village) Maragusan.

Tutaan said that 20 guerrillas, 12 of them males and eight females, seized the 39 villagers  who are mostly small-scale miners last Saturday.

Of the 39, four are children with ages four months old to three years old, while two are female adults.

“The NPA is hiding under the cloaks of the civilians,” Tutaan said. “Civilians are not combatants, these NPA do not have any regard for human law.”

Local officials, quoting victims’ account of the events, said the hostages were made to sign a logbook and were asked to carry wounded NPA rebels and the rebels’ personal belongings.

They said rebels probably used the miners as human shields to hold off the attack by the military’s 66th IB.  With a report from Frinston L. Lim, Inquirer Mindanao

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