Two policemen died after a brief clash with suspected communist rebels in a remote area of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro the other day.
The encounter that resulted in the death of SPO1 Bonifacio Tacuyo and SPO2 Raymundo Robles was just one of the three clashes that erupted as joint police and military launched pursuit operations against a group of communist rebels spotted near the boundary of Occidental and Oriental Mindoro.
Tacuyo and Robles are both members of the Provincial Mobile Force Company, an anti-insurgency unit of the local police.
A military report revealed that the first clash erupted at around 6 a.m. Saturday, involving 10 suspected communist rebels.
The second clash erupted four hours later at around 10 a.m. when a group of policemen conducting pursuit operations chanced upon the communist rebels in Sitio Imbrasan, Barangay Mapayapa, San Jose. It was during that clash that Tacuyo and Robles were killed.
The third clash occurred an hour later.
Supt. Socrates Faltado, spokesman of the Philippine National Police Region 4-A, said the rebel group that killed the two cops belong to a unit led by a certain “Jojo Zapra.”
Faltado said the local police immediately sent reinforcements and were able to recover several belongings of communist rebels at the encounter site.
The 4,000-strong New People’s Army has been waging almost a five-decade armed struggle against the government following a series of peace negotiations that would always bog down.
Recently, local candidates have been warned against yielding to the campaign-to-permit fees being demanded by the communist rebels. (Aaron Recuenco)
