Members of the Communist New People’s Army (NPA) ambushed and killed a police commando and wounded 10 others in Iloilo province in the Visayas, a day after President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte formally cancelled peace negotiations with them for their “insincerity.”
Police said the ambush occurred early on Friday night while members of the elite Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force were aboard a truck on their way back to their base in the town of Maasin, Iloilo.
More than six months ago in June, heavily armed NPAs attacked and took over without bloodshed a police station in Maasin and fled after looting the armoury and taking personal effects of the policemen like watches, money and cellphones.
An NPA spokesman on Saturday confirmed the attack which came a day after Duterte issued a proclamation on Thursday formally cancelling their peace talks as he denounced the insurgents for their “insincerity” due to their unabated attacks on civilian as well as military and police facilities that resulted in killings as well as destruction of properties and equipment.
This was confirmed by Major General Restituto Padilla, the spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, who revealed that in Eastern Mindanao alone, the insurgents attacked and destroyed properties and equipment worth $40 million from January to November this year.
The estimate, Padilla said, was based on the 50 “incidents” reported during that period, particularly the burning and destroying of properties such as buses and road construction equipment.
This is on top of another $40 million “extorted’ by the NPA’s from mining firms under the guise of demanding payment of “revolutionary taxes,” Padilla revealed.
“These were based on field reports submitted and duly validated on the ground by the military,” Padilla told GMA News, referring to the Eastern Mindanao Command.
The NPA with about 4,000 members, is the armed component of the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been waging a Maolst-style insurgency against the government for close to 50 years, considered the longest in the region.
When Duterte took over as president in June 2016, he announced the resumption peace talks with the Maoists through their political arm the National Democratic Front (NDF) in Oslo, Norway as the third party facilitator.
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