Scout Rangers bound for Samar

From the Visayan Daily Star (Oct 14): Scout Rangers bound for Samar

The remaining elite Scout Ranger troopers in Negros Occidental have been alerted to join their colleagues dispatched last month to Zamboanga City in another assignment, this time in Samar.

Lt. Col. Oriel Pangcog, 1 st Scout Ranger Battalion commander, yesterday said the redeployment of his troops in Negros and Zamboanga to Samar, was ordered by the Armed Forces of the Philippines Central Command.

Before they were dispatched to Zamboanga, Pangcog said that being a national maneuver unit of the AFP, CenCom had plans to send them to Samar.

The 1 st SRB had been under the operational control of Army's 3 rd Infantry Division since 2004, military records show.

The Negros-based Scout Rangers were among the AFP elite units who fought the Moro National Liberation Front fighters in more than two weeks of intense gunbattle in Zamboanga City.

In the weeks of fighting against the MNLF-Nur Misuari faction, Pangcog reported that they captured 121 MNLF fighters, recovered 102 high-powered firearms, including anti-tank 90mm recoiless rifle, and two artillery mortar weapons, and rescued 61 civilians taken as hostages.

The 1 st SRB suffered three fatalities and 55 injured, but 61 MNLF fighters very also killed in his sector alone in Brgy. Santa Catalina Zamboanga City, military records show.

The Zamboanga City conflict started Sept. 9 when about 400 followers of Misuari occupied at least six barangays and took about 200 civilians as hostages.

Pangcog said the “heroes welcome” for 1 st SRB troopers will be held at the Army's 8 th Infantry Division headquarters in Samar, that has been identified among the priority areas for clearing of the New People's Army by the AFP Central Command in Visayas.

http://www.visayandailystar.com/2013/October/14/topstory7.htm