NPA owns up to ambush in Iloilo that killed cop, wounded 10 others

ILOILO CITY — The New People’s Army has owned up to the ambush in which one police officers was killed and 10 others were wounded in Sitio Camansi, Barangay Bolo in Maasin town in Iloilo province on Friday, about five months after the insurgents overran the town’s police station and took 15 firearms.

The Coronacion Chiva Waling-Waling Command posted a statement from the NPA’s Jose Percival Estocada Command that claimed responsibility on the attack on its Facebook page on Saturday.

The statement said no one was hurt among the communist rebels who took part in the attack.

Killed was of PO1 Joefel Odon of the Regional Public Safety Battalion of the Police Regional Office 6 (RPSB-PRO-6) who was shot in the head.

The following officers were wounded:

• Insp. Melvin Dulce
• PO1 Belvy Bachiller
• PO1 Rolando Lozada
• PO1 Vincent Yasay
• PO1 April Rey Ansag
• PO1 Nory Talento
• PO1 Kim Iver Cornel
• PO1 Keith Delejero
• PO1 Mark Paul Banquillo
• PO2 Jose Manuel Bana-ay

All of them belong to the RPSB-PRO-6.

Dulce told Inquirer that they were about to leave Sitio Camansi following a routine patrol operation when they heard two explosions from both sides of the road. This was followed by heavy gunfire.

“It was deafening. I didn’t know what happened next,” he said in Hiligaynon.

Bana-ay said they believed that the explosions came from the landmines that targeted their truck.

“Then they peppered us with bullets from high powered firearms,” he added.

This was the third offensive by NPA in Maasin this year.

There was an encounter between government troopers and NPA rebels in the town’s Trangka last November 20. No one was hurt.

But last June 18, a group of NPA rebels raided the town’s police station and  took 15 firearms as well as the policemen’s personal belongings which they later returned through the local media.

The recent attack in Maasin came three days after two policemen were wounded in an NPA ambush in Sibalom town, Antique. /atm