NPA accepts Mindanao town’s offer of medical assistance

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—The New People’s Army  said it welcomed with gratitude an  offer by Mayor Rudy Caoagdan of Makilala, North Cotabato, to have wounded guerrillas treated in the town’s hospital.

The NPA said in an open letter to Caoagdan that it had no casualties in need of hospitalization now but  hoped the offer would last for as long as the its “people’s war” continued.

“Fortunately, not one of our comrades was wounded in this recent attack by the military (in Makilala),” Macario Dilaab of the NPA’s Mt. Alip Operations Command in North Cotabato said in the letter, a copy of which was also e-mailed to the Inquirer.

“We hope that this offer remains throughout the protracted life-and-death struggle of our people’s war,” Dilaab said. “We hope that in a difficult situation we may come to you for aid and assistance.”

Caoagdan is the second Mindanao executive to offer direct help to the NPA this year.

In June, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte personally had three wounded rebels, one of them a woman, treated at the Southern Philippines Medical Center here.

Duterte said two of the rebels had been released from hospital because of the absence of cases against them.

The female rebel being treated at the SPMC has been charged by the military and the police but Duterte said she should not be taken out of the medical facility due to the seriousness of her injuries.

“She can’t be removed from the hospital yet because she is undergoing medical treatment,” Duterte said.

Meanwhile, 218 families have left their homes in the villages of Buhisan and Mahaba in the hinterlands of San Agustin, Surigao del Sur, since June 26 for fear of being mistaken for communist rebels by soldiers, the human rights group Karapatan in Caraga region said.

The evacuation escalated when a 14-year-old boy and three other residents were fired upon by soldiers in separate incidents on June 26, Karapatan said.

The human rights group said one of the harassed residents, Florante Rivas, an abaca farmer, has been missing since the incident.

“The evacuees have been demanding that the military leave their mountain communities as their farm work has been limited due to fear of being mistaken as members of the New People’s Army (NPA). They have been accused by the military of not only supporting the NPA but also of having relatives in the NPA. They have been threatened and harassed by the operating troops,” Karapatan said.

Major Eugenio Julio Osias IV, spokesman of the military’s 4th Infantry Division based in Cagayan de Oro, said there was indeed an ongoing military operation in Surigao del Sur but denied Karapatan’s claims.

“We are closely monitoring the IDPs’ (internally displaced people) current situation and we are giving out support and help in the best way we can,” Osias said.

Osias said Colonel Romeo Gan, commander of the Army’s 401st Infantry Brigade, has been in close contact with the affected families and local government officials.

The directive of Major Geneneral Victor Felix, 4th Infantry Division commander, is for ground troops to exercise restraint and avoid collateral damage in the conduct of the military operations, Osias said.