Camp Aquino, Tarlac City - After being beaten in a major armed encounter a few days ago, NPA remnants ambushed soldiers and civilians carrying a cadaver of an NPA from the previous battle site 9:30PM Friday in Brgy Guiguinabang, Lacub, Abra.
Soldiers from the 41st Infantry Battalion and a group of local populace were transporting the cadaver of an NPA identified as Umin Bernal a.k.a Tubong to be turned over to the LGU and local police and further to a funeral home when they were fired upon by a group of NPA remnants which resulted to the death of one civilian and a soldier and wounding of three more troops while the NPA suffered two killed and one was apprehended when soldiers returned fire in defense of the civilians.
The identities of the civilian fatality and the soldiers are temporarily withheld pending notification of their next of kin while the two dead NPAs are still unidentified as of latest report.
It may be recalled that NPA suffered six dead in a fierce firefight last Thursday. The dead NPAs were gradually identified with the help of civilians in the vicinity who went to the casualty and medical evacuation area to look for relatives. Civilians found out that Umin Bernal a.k.a Tubong, their townmate in Lacub was one of the dead NPA and volunteered to carry their townmate’s cadaver to Lacub proper.
Lt.Gen Felicito Virgilio Trinidad, the NOLCOM Commander condemned the act as “a brazen display of brutality, total disregard to the safety of civilians and wanton violation of human rights.”
“Our troops and the civilians were merely doing their moral obligation as soldiers of the people and as townmates respectively to bring the cadaver to a place where his body can be claimed by relatives and be given proper burial but the NPA remnants still fired at them. This shows the kind of ideology they are fighting for if any” Lt. Gen. Trinidad said.
“We offer our deepest and heartfelt sympathy to the relatives of the civilian killed by the NPA and we assure them that our soldiers will do everything under the law to make the perpetrators accountable to their crime against the people” Lt. Gen. Trinidad also said.
“We are also calling on the conscience of our lost brothers in the NPA to look closely on the things they are doing and perhaps they may realize that we all suffer in their bloody way of furthering their belief. We are constantly hopeful that they will heed the voice of the people to stop violence and join the mainstream society so that we can collectively pursue lasting peace and development specially in the countryside” Lt. Gen. Trinidad concluded.
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