TV5 screenshot of video uploaded by the NPA, showing Pfc Adones Jes Lupida in captivity. Survivors of an NPA attack in Misamis Oriental hailed him a hero for refraining from firing at positions of rebels hiding beneath the bamboo floor of a house with 15 civilians. The NPA then seized him as a "POW."
Negotiations have begun for the release from New People's Army captivity of a soldier hailed by civilians as a hero for avoiding firing at rebels hiding in a bamboo hut in Misamis Oriental, thus sparing the village folk from being killed by collateral fire.
Pfc Adones Jess Lupida was eventually taken by the rebels as a Prisoner of War.
A cease-fire was declared between the military and the rebels while the negotiations for Lupida's safe release are ongoing. However, the military said it would continue its search and rescue operation.
The encounter between the NPA guerrillas and soldiers of the 58th Infantry Battalion in Gingoog City Saturday (July 11) afternoon had traumatized several women and children in barangay Alagatan.
There were 15 people, including five children and two pregnant women, in the civilians' house when the rebels took positions beneath the bamboo floor. They fired upon a CVO outpost nearby. Lupida, according to the survivors, kept shouting at the rebels to just get out of the house to spare the civilians, seeing how risky it would have been to fire at the rebels' positions. But Lupida was eventually outnumbered and forced to yield.
“The frightening part was that the NPA rebels were hiding underneath the bamboo floor where we were. If the soldier on the CVO outpost [who turned out later to be Pfc Lupida] had fired back, I am sure we would have all been dead. The soldier just shouted to [the rebels to] let the civilians get out of the house until the time he [the soldier] surrendered to save us,” one woman who survived the incident said, in an earlier article in InterAksyon.com
Residents said there were 15 people, including five children and two pregnant women in the house balcony playing cards; and some were just observing the game, when the incident happened.
“We were all trapped, we did not have time to run away from the house as we all just dropped to the floor when the firefight started. We then slowly crawled towards the lower part of the house which was concrete but it had already injured one of us,” said Neri, referring to how Leticia Bonghanoy Cabrera, 52, was hit by a bullet in the right shoulder.
[Video report]
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/114482/video--negotiations-start-for-release-of-hero-soldier-seized-by-npa-in-misamis
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