Military says NPA had heavy casualties during encounter

CONTRARY to the National Democratic Front's press statement that the latest military encounter left them with nary a scratch, army's 302nd Brigade insists the New People's Army suffered heavy casualties. At the recent Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) meeting Monday, army brigade commander Colonel Jessie Dellosa showed that despite being ambushed and tactically disadvantaged, the elements of the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion were able to counter attack and hit hard.

An if the discarded armalite magazine was any gauge, a red fighter named Jeng or somebody named Cobra could be a casualty, that is, if he had survived. Independent sources associate the name alias Cobra an Jeng, scratched on to the magazine may belong to a certain Domingo Compoc: a key rebel leader. Col. Dellosa showd PPOC members the magazine with a bullet hole, a telltale sign that the owner could have been a bloody mess had he survived. The observation is also shared by ballistics experts who analyzed that the bullet punched magazine may indeed get the owner.

Last week, newspaper reports said the soldiers were following blood trails of the retreating rebels, but the military never considers such a hit unless they could do a body count, government sources said. In fact, unnamed media sources said there were explicit instructions to rebel mass base in the neighboring barangays to extricate a wounded woman from Ozamis and another fallen comrade. The military reported that sectoral groups in nearbt barangays tried to facilitate an extricate casualties.

Meanwhile, the volume of documents and other war provisions, medicine kits and personal belongings recovered by the mopping team from the encounter site showed that it may not be an easy escape for the rebels who were the aggressors that Saturday, February 3 in Sta. Cruz Batuan. The military forces also recovered a stationry with Evelyn Dublin Command, a Leyte based fighting front. On this, Col. Dellosa, on his report hinted that the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-NDF here is augmented by forces from other provinces to rattle their swords and facilitate their planned extortion activities especially this election season.

The recovery of Bohol will mean victory of the CPP-NPA-NDF, and part of the plan is the strengthening of its Internal Security Forces so they can intimidate and coerce targets for extortion, the army head analyzed. “Recovery and expansion efforts are designed to have a wider area of coverage for the imposition of the permit to campaign fees, Dellosa summed. Speaking on the legal fronts, Col. Dellosa said they are in connivance with each other as they are expected to impose their PTC during the campaign period. The military also believed that the recent encounter would derail the CPP-NPA-NDF recovery and expansion plan. However, as the surrenderee and Party secretary Domingo Samuya's copperation is vital to the government campaign against the local rebels, 302nd Bde said. As this surfaces, the military said to address and contain the CPP underground and aboveground operations through sustained and uncompromising convergent efforts of Bohol PPOC members The unrelenting convergent efforts of Team Bohol will greatly contribute to the total solution of the insurgency menace here, the military recommends.

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