New People's Army (NPA)-Southern Mindanao propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Apr 29): Mercenary 28th IB hit in series of NPA offensives in Davao Oriental, 1 rifle seized
Rigoberto F. Sanchez, Spokesperson
NPA-Southern Mindanao
29 April 2018
Red fighters under the 6th Pulang Bagani Company of the New People’s Army ambushed a platoon of the 28th Infantry Battalion in Purok Kinawasan, Brgy. San Isidro in Lupon, Davao Oriental at around 3pm on April 26. A Remington Carbine M4 rifle with scope was seized during the offensive. The 28th IB forces were on foot patrol when Red fighters triggered a command-detonated explosive and engaged the troops in a firefight. One soldier was killed, while several others were wounded.The ambushed mercenary soldiers were part of the insidious civic-military operation forces deployed in Brgy. San Isidro since last year.
For two hours following the ambush, the 28th IB carried out first round of artillery strike, targeting the densely populated villages of San Isidro and Likop in adjacent Mati City and destroying houses and farms in its wake. The second round lasted more than three hours and until midnight. Some 50 families have been forced to evacuate.
Meanwhile yesterday, April 28, an NPA unit of the Comval-Davao Gulf Sub-Regional Command launched attritive action against the 28th IB and 72nd IB detachment in Brgy. Marayag as, almost simultaneously, another company of Red fighters mounted a mobile checkpoint for several hours at the Compostela Valley – Davao Oriental national highway in Lupon. The NPA’s mobile checkpoint was only several minutes away from the nearest regular checkpoint maintained by the 28th IB.
Since early last year, or even before Duterte’s declaration of martial law, the 28th IB has been terrorizing Brgy. San Isidro and its adjacent villages in Lupon town and Mati City, which comprise part of the tenement area of Chinese-owned mining companies Phil. Youbang Mining Corp., Dabawenyo Minerals Corp. and Phil. Jenshen International Mining Corp. Residents of the villages were subjected to “clearing
operations”—which cover the usual intimidation, red-baiting, forced surrender and periodic food blockade—to make way for the unimpeded environmentally-destructive operations of the mining companies. The three companies, securing Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (MPSA) to conduct their disastrous operations, are among DENR Sec. Roy Cimatu’s more favored large-scale foreign mining operators in the province.
The 28th IB is notorious for being hired armed goons of mining companies in Davao Oriental, handsomely employed to do the dirty work of driving away peasants and Lumad from their sources of livelihood and suppressing the masses’ resistance to mining operations. Early this year, a security outpost of 28th IB soldiers and private security goons guarding RAM Aggregates, Inc., a nickle-ore mining company, was overran by Red fighters in Banay-banay town.
The latest tactical offensive in Davao Oriental is also a slap on the face the province’s fascist bureaucrats Cong. Corazon Malanyaon and Gov. Nelson Dayanghirang and the AFP forces assigned in the area who have time and again declared the province “cleared and insurgency-free.” The latest in their pathetic barefaced lies is parading so-called surrenderers, more than 90% of whom were unarmed civilians who were threatened and herded to attend a “peace caravan.”
In February, the 28th IB churned out a hackneyed story of a supposed NPA surrenderer who claimed to be an officer of the provincial chapter of a progressive partylist. Failing to provide actual battle success and facing escalating resistance from the masses for its crimes and predisposition of being paid armed lackeys to capitalist interest, the 28th IB instead busies itself in weaving half-truths and bare lies with local warlord politicians like Malanyaon and Dayanghirang.
The AFP is poised to intensify the militarization in Davao Oriental in order to protect the reactionary provincial government’s planned “industrial park” which is sure to displace more peasants and Lumad, poison and devastate the environment and benefit the greed of local politicians, local compradors and foreign capitalists with the proposed construction of power plants, petrochemical and fertilizer factories and other such industries.
The NPA in Davao Oriental supports the growing resistance of the peasants and Lumad to protect their way of life and means of living. Red fighters are ready to give battle against the US-Duterte’s terroristic armed defense of the ruling class’ greed because, despite the AFP’s laughable claims and misrepresentations, the NPA in the region continues to enjoy the love and support of the masses for revolutionary armed struggle.
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