One junior officer was killed and one soldier was wounded in an attack by suspected members of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Davao Oriental on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the communist rebels declared the termination of their unilateral ceasefire.
Troops from the 67th Infantry Battalion were conducting community security visitation in response to the harassments of the [NPA] in Sitio Paliwason, Barangay (village) Lambog in Manay town at 1:45 p.m., a military report said.
About 30 armed men fired at the soldiers and the firefight is ongoing as of posting time.
The slain officer had a rank of Second Lieutenant but was not immediately identified pending the notification of his family. The injured soldier had a rank of a Private.
While the NPA said on Wednesday morning that the termination of the ceasefire is on Feb. 10, it ordered all its command and units “from today until the expiration of the ceasefire declaration… to take initiative and more vigorously carry out active defense in order to defend the people and revolutionary forces.”
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The government and communists declared their respective unilateral ceasefire last August. It was broken after a firefight in Makilala, North Cotabato last week, which left one rebel dead.
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Several incidents of abduction, extortion and ambush supposedly done by the NPA were reported by the military since Sunday. RAM