2 Army soldiers killed in NPA ambush in North Cotabato

From the Mindanao Examiner (May 5): 2 Army soldiers killed in NPA ambush in North Cotabato

New People’s Army rebels killed two government soldiers and wounded two more in an ambush in North Cotabato’s Magpet town in the southern Philippines.

Isabel Fermiza, a spokesperson for the NPA’s Mount Apo Sub-Regional Command, said the soldiers were members of the 57th Infantry Battalion which is tasked to provide security to political candidates in the province.

Fermiza said they also intensified the “campaign against coercive vote-buying and military operations to protect the people and defend revolutionary base areas in keeping with the guidelines set by the “People's Democratic Government for the candidates of the reactionary elections.”

She said they also confiscated 98 sacks of rice from political operators of local candidates who have usurped revolutionary territories in the villages of Magpet, Makilala and Arakan towns, all in North Cotabato province.

She said the NPA turned over the confiscated rice to the pertinent local organs of political power for proper accounting and disposal.

“The confiscation of rice, NPA checkpoints and punitive military actions against the military and police and paramilitary elements in the run-up to the May 13 elections in North Cotabato are meant to protect the masses from the onslaught of reactionary politicking and coercion,” Fermiza said.

The rebels are fighting for a separate communist state in the country.

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