2 policemen dead, 5 hurt in Candoni town ambush

BACOLOD City – Two policemen were killed and five others injured in an ambush by alleged members of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Candoni town, about 140 kilometers south of here, Thursday night.

Candoni Vice Mayor Diomedes Magada said Police Officers 1 Joe Harry Peralta and Henry Vell Pacheco were killed in the attack while PO1s Jay Arroyo and Modesto Viña were injured. Senior Police Officer 4 Boyd Mate and PO1 Charlemagne Caballero were unharmed.

Three civilians – Julius Miravalles, Rey Duales and another who has yet to be identified – were also hurt.

Magada said the six policemen were responding to a call for help after a man was stabbed in Barangay Caningay.

On their way back, the group stopped near the Panaculan Creek bridge after spotting a banana tree laid across the road. The rebels then fired at them and at the patrol car, which fell into the creek.

Residents brought the wounded policemen to a clinic.

Army 3rd Infantry Division spokesman Lt. Col. Ray Tiongson condemned the attack, saying it was a violation of the agreement to respect human rights and international humanitarian law.

“Their action will not go unpunished. Those who are involved in this senseless act of killing through inhumane tactics will be held liable as their victims seek justice,” Tiongson said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and Lingayen-Dagupan bishop, expressed sadness over the killing of six policemen and wounding of nine others in Baggao, Cagayan on Tuesday by the NPA.

“Obviously, apart from the moral evil of willfully destroying property is the injury visited on farmers who would otherwise benefit from the irrigation projects,” Villegas said in a statement.

The police men were among the Cagayan Police Regional Public Safety Battalion members who responded to an emergency call about an NPA attack on a National Irrigation Administration project.

Villegas said the fallen policemen gave their lives in defense of the democratic way of life.

“We reprove strongly the posturing of a group that holds itself out as the defender of people’s rights but has no compunctions about what are essentially acts of pillage, brigandage, extortion and murder,” Villegas added.