P5,000 aid offer to blast victims won’t ‘exonerate’ NPA rebels—military

A convoy of ambulances that were supposed to pick up wounded soldiers was hit by a bomb set off by the New People’s Army last Sunday, March 2. Photo shows the hardest hit ambulances.

BANSALAN, Davao del Sur, Philippines—While the New People’s Army issued an apology and offered financial aid to the civilians who were victims of their landmine blast here, for the military it seemed not enough.

“Is it enough to exonerate for the crime they did?” Colonel Roderick Parayno, chief of the military’s human rights office, told reporters here on Friday, referring to the financial aid.

But he did not discourage the victims to accept the P5,000 worth of financial assistance offered by the communist guerrillas.

A landmine blast over the weekend injured 17 soldiers and civilians here. A convoy of ambulances that was set to rescue wounded soldiers were hit by a bomb set off by the communist rebels.

On Wednesday, the NPA issued an apology, saying they failed to distinguish the ambulances from the military trucks. They also offered financial compensation to the victims.

“We understand that and we are not telling them not to take the assistance. We welcome any form of assistance,” Parayno said.

“But if that is the system–  I make a crime and I will pay you then we’re even, I don’t think we are in that level. Our country follows a due process,” he said.

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