NEWSFLASH

MINDORO NPA REBELS KILL 8 COPS

Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro, July 6, 2000 - Communist rebels ambushed a team of policemen in a mountain village in Oriental Mindoro Tuesday afternoon, killing eight law enforcers and wounding five others.

A civilian and a local photographer were also wounded in the ambush, the second major communist attack on government troops in a week.

Reports reaching the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters at Camp Crame yesterday said some 60 suspected members of the New People's Army (NPA) attacked the police team tasked to investigate the killing of a barangay chairman in Barangay Villa Cerveza, Victoria town last Monday.

The policemen were traveling in Barangay San Antonio in Victoria aboard a van, an ambulance and a jeep when one of the vehicles hit a land mine. After the explosion, the rebels, who were positioned on a hilly roadside, opened fire on the lawmen.

Eight policemen were killed instantaneously, including SPO4 Wilfredo Feliciano, the deputy police chief of Victoria town. Oriental Mindoro provincial police chief Superintendent Emelito Sarmiento identified the other fatalities as SPO2 Juan Gargullo, SPO2 Efren Tamales, SPO1 Jufronio Dimaano, and special action forces PO2 Norlito Rodriguez, PO1 Henry Biar, PO1 Christopher Gergulia and PO1 Gilbert Umali.

Wounded were Victoria town police chief Inspector William Destura and three of his men identified as SPO3 Ciriaco Gonzales, SPO2 Juan Ramos Jr., and PO1 Gilbert Umali. Also reported wounded was local photographer Severino Bata and another civilian, Dante Gozar.

Destura had been warned by local officials not to proceed to Villa Cerveza immediately because many NPA rebels were still roaming the area.

The ambush was the second major clash on Mindoro island in less than a week. Last Sunday, an NPA commander identified as Ka Alpha was killed and three policemen and one civilian were wounded in a battle in Mansalay town.

Mansalay police chief Ariel Quilang said he believes 14 more rebels were killed in the fighting but their bodies were carried away by their comrades.

PNP spokesman Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome said the communists, who were previously quiet in Mindoro, has recently become more active.

Oriental Mindoro Gov. Rodolfo Valencia, however, said the two NPA attacks were isolated incidents which do not reflect the general peace still being enjoyed by the province.

The renewed attacks came after Luis Jalandoni, the self-exiled leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front (CPP-NDF), called on the NPA to increase its offensives to take advantage of the diversion of the majority of the military's strength to Mindanao to fight Muslim separatist rebels.

Last June 28, in response to Jalandoni's order, communist insurgents ambushed a military medical mission, killing an Army colonel and 12 of his troops in Jones town, Isabela, in the most serious NPA attack in almost a decade.