NPA denies firefight with government troopers

From the Philippine News Agency (Feb 20): NPA denies firefight with government troopers

The communist New People’s Army (NPA) on Friday denied an armed engagement with government troopers while a group of foreigners was in Mt. Kitanglad in Bukidnon.

Alan Juanito, the spokesperson of the NPA-North Central Mindanao Committee, said that the NPA rebels were constrained to issue the statement to the local media after the military has issued a press release that its troopers had engaged the NPA in a firefight in Mt Kitanglad sometime in the morning of Feb. 13, 2015.

Army Maj. Christian Uy, of the army’s 4th Infantry Division, said that one was wounded when a group of foreigners was caught in the crossfire between the government troopers and the NPA guerrillas in Mt. Kitanglad.

Uy said that the military was pursuing a group of armed men believed to be NPA members when the firefight occurred in the village of Dalwangan, part of the Kitanglad mountain range, where a group of seven foreign environmentalists were on a “birdwatching” trip in the area.

Village officials have reported that Carlito Gayamara, the foreigners’ guide, was wounded in the firefight as the foreigners scampered for safety. The foreigners were later safely evacuated to the nearby city of Malaybalay.

Juanito said that the NPA has denounced the military’s propensity of putting the blame on the communist guerillas by concocting a scenario of armed skirmishes that have never taken place.

“It was ridiculous that out of their (military) folly, they would blame the attack on the NPA. It was really slapped on the military’s taunted professionalism, much less, involving the elite force of the army rangers,” Juanito said in a statement to the local media.

It also lamented that the military has not taken care of Gayamara, the lone victim who suffered gunshot wounds during the military’s invented armed encounter, Juanito said.

He said that Gayamara, who is confined in a hospital in Valencia City in Bukidnon, has been made to pay his own medical bills without getting any assistance from the military.

Uy, however, said that the military has extended medical assistance, particularly in the medical operation of Gayamara.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=737555