Encounters Left 9 NPAs Dead, Many Others Wounded

Malaybalay City— The 8th Infantry Battalion under Ltc Maurito L Licudine engaged the New People’s Army under Guerilla Front 6 in a series of encounter that left the communists with 9 combatants dead, and still-to- be determined number of wounded fighters. Government troops suffered two (2) Killed-in-Action and two others wounded.

The encounter happened in the mountainous area of Barangay Banlag, Valencia City, Bukidnon.

8IB Troopers had been scouring the area for the last two days after receiving intelligence reports about the presence of an NPA encampment somewhere in the vicinity of Barangays Banlag and Concepcion in Valencia City.

At around 12:20 in the afternoon of December 15, troops under Lt Oria and 2Lt Nelvis encountered more or less 60 heavily armed NPAs believed to be under the leadership of Abelardo Navarro a.k.a. Canoy/Zorro. After 20 minutes of heavy exchanges of firefight, the NPAs withdrew southward. At 12:35, the withdrawing NPAs clashed with the troops under Lt de la Cruz and 2Lt Gobway. The skirmishes left the NPAs with 5 dead and several others wounded and the recovery of two (2) M16, two (2) Garand and one (1) M14 high powered firearms.

At 4:00 in the afternoon, the withdrawing NPAs engaged the government troops again. The encounter left them with 4 more dead fighters, bringing the total number of dead NPAs to 9 individuals and additional three (3) M16s and one (1) M14 rifles recovered bringing the total number of recovered firearms to 9.

At around 5:30 in the afternoon, same day, another encounter took place. As of this writing, heavy exchanges of fire is still continuing.

Col Nicanor Dolojan, Brigade Commander of the 403rd Peacemaker Brigade, 4ID PA, expressed optimism that the government troops will prevail in the continuing battle even as he also sympathized with the families of all those who died in the encounter. BGen Mario F Chan, 4ID Commander, instructed the troops to pursue the enemy relentlessly to bring a strong message to the CPP-NPA that their armed revolution has no chance of ever achieving victory.