20 soldiers out of scuba drill, first-timers in clash

THEY KEPT COMING’ A soldier carries a wounded comrade airlifted by helicopter from Al-Barka, Basilan, for treatment in Zamboanga City on Tuesday. At least 19 soldiers of the Special Action Forces were killed in a clash with Moro rebels. A survivor of the ambush said they were outnumbered and overwhelmed. AP

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Many of the soldiers who battled Moro rebels on Tuesday in Al-Barka, Basilan, were first-timers in the town and were not familiar with the terrain at all, officials said.

Twenty of the 41 soldiers sent to Al-Barka were strangers to the place, having been plucked out of their scuba-diving training program, according to Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom).

The clash resulted in the death of 19 soldiers and six fighters of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Private First Class Arnel Balili, a survivor of the encounter, confirmed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer that many of his companions, including those who were killed, had not been assigned to Al-Barka before.

Warm bodies

“It just so happened that the unit needed warm bodies and that force was available at that time,” Cabangbang said.

The soldiers were to hunt down rebel leader Dan Asnawi, who was involved in the mutilation and beheading of Marine soldiers in Al-Barka in 2007, Cabangbang said.

Asnawi was arrested in the aftermath of the beheading but he escaped from the Basilan provincial jail, along with more than two dozen other inmates, in December 2009.

Balili also acknowledged that the soldiers belonging to the Army’s Special Forces had problems with the terrain.

Based on a military report, four teams under the 4th Special Forces Battalion were deployed to Barangay Cambug to conduct a “strike-and-withdraw operation.”

Surprised

Lieutenant General Raymundo Ferrer, Westmincom commander, told the Inquirer that the Al-Barka operation was not clearly coordinated with his office.

“If you are asking questions, then we were equally surprised,” he said.

That was why he wanted to know what really happened and why, Ferrer said.

For one, a number of the soldiers deployed to Al-Barka were pulled out of training, which started in August in Recodo village here, according to Ferrer.

He said he wanted to find out who was responsible.

Relieved

Colonel Leonardo Peña, commander of the 4th Special Forces Battalion, was relieved on Wednesday morning by the Army chief, Lieutenant General Arturo Ortiz.

Cabangbang, citing standard operating procedures, said certain commanders were involved in decision-making.

“It depends on the size and composition of the units. If it’s an independent operation, the decision will come from the battalion commander,” he said.

Cabangbang said if two battalions were involved, a brigade commander would make the decision.

In the case of the Al-Barka deployment, he said the decision could have come from the battalion commander, in this case, Peña or from the Task Force Basilan commander, Colonel Alexander Macario.

Ferrer said he wanted to ascertain who issued the order to pull out the Special Forces members on training. “If the order came from the battalion level, was there another order from a higher official?” he asked.

Before, during, after

Cabangbang said the probe would include the “before, immediately before, during, after, immediately after the entire actual engagement.”

Private First Class Renante Malinao of the 13th Special Forces Company said that as soon as his group entered the village at around 6 a.m., the firing from the MILF side immediately began.

“We scattered ourselves to avoid being hit. We crawled so we could survive,” he said, describing the bullets coming from all directions.

Malinao, who was positioned on a slope, said he was still hit despite his efforts to avoid the bullets.

Dark, four gunshots

Private First Class Arnel Malinao, a radioman from the 14th SF who was also injured in the clash, said it was quite dark when the soldiers reached Cambug.

While he and the soldiers were walking toward the target site, they heard four gunshots. “All of these were fired in the air,” Malinao said.

He said he and his comrades shifted to alert status and continued walking toward the target. It was at this juncture that they saw four men on two motorcycles but they were unsure if they were enemies.

Then shots rang out again and they saw about 10 men firing on them.

Falling one by one

“We dropped on our bellies and started crawling out of their sight,” Malinao said.

As the firing continued, he said he watched helplessly as his colleagues fell one by one.

Balili said the first to be hit was 1st Lieutenant Colt Alsiyao, followed by 1st Lieutenant Vladimir Maninang. They soon died.

“The last time I heard of Sir Khe (2nd Lieutenant Jose Delfine) was that he was wounded,” he said of the other official killed in the battle.

Reinforcements came in 3 hours

Malinao said he heard on the radio that Khe was calling for reinforcements before he was hit.

But he said the reinforcements only came around 9 a.m., about three hours after they were under fire.

“If the reinforcements came earlier, many would have survived,” said Private First Class Jestoni Layson, machine gunner of the 13th SF.

“The difference in time between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. was very significant,” he added.

Balili agreed with Layson’s assessment but he also said that even if the reinforcements arrived earlier, they would still be helpless because of the sheer number of the rebels.

Besides, they were all under fire and had to fire back while grabbing the wounded ones, he said.

Layson said even his previous stint in Al-Barka failed to help him protect his colleagues.

Private First Class Tonny Rey Espinida, one of the two missing soldiers found alive, said everyone was trying to escape and withdraw from the encounter site while pulling their wounded comrades out of the firing line.

In his case, Espinida said he was separated from the group when he fell down the slope during the first firing.

“It was very dark. I followed a river downstream before I realized that I survived. I reached the SF detachment (on Wednesday),” Espinida said.

Fame and death

Private First Class Michael Natividad, another soldier who had gone missing, was found Thursday slumped by the shoreline near the site of the encounter alive but drenched and cold.

A military official Thursday showed Balili a copy of the Inquirer, which showed a photo of him being carried by a soldier.

“Boy, you have become a real hero,” the official said in jest. But Balili curtly replied: “Sir, I could be a hero but at what cost?”

Layson was visibly hurting from the death of his colleagues—especially his classmates in the scuba diving sessions.

Scheduled graduation

“Only 16 of us remain should our scheduled graduation (on October 22) push through,” he said.

Macario said all the 41 soldiers involved in the Al-Barka clash had been recovered—either dead or alive.

He said there were only eight soldiers who went missing at the height of the clash. “Two of them were found alive while the other six were all dead,” Macario said.

AFP to probe

The Armed Forces of the Philippines on Thursday started an investigation of what it said could be operational lapses in the bloody encounter.

“That is what we are going to see and investigate,” said Lieutenant General Ireneo Espino, AFP inspector general, who arrived here in time for the funeral honors for the slain soldiers.

Espino said results of the investigation would be made public.