4 gov’t troops hurt in NPA ambush in Quezon town

LUCENA CITY – Four soldiers were wounded in an ambush staged by suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in General Luna town in Quezon province Tuesday morning, a military official said.

Col. Elias Escarcha, commander of the Army’s 201st Infantry Brigade, said four soldiers from the Army’s engineering brigade aboard a military truck were injured when a landmine planted by the communist rebels detonated.

“They were immediately brought to a hospital in Catanauan town,” Escarcha said in a phone interview.

A policewoman on duty at the General Luna police, said the ambush incident happened along the Bondoc Peninsula highway in Barangay Bacong around 9:15 a.m.

Police declined to provide details.

Escarcha said the communist guerrillas also sniped a soldier’s detachment in Barangay 9 in Catanauan town.

No soldier was hurt in the sniping incident.

“It was purely harassment and not an attack,” Escarcha said.

The Army official said the two incidents in General Luna and Catanauan happened simultaneously.

Combined police and Army soldiers were hot on the heels of the escaping NPA rebels responsible for the twin attacks.

The attacks followed the raid staged by NPA guerrillas at Hacienda Tumbaga in San Francisco town, also in the province’s Bondoc Peninsula.