BY MARIE TONETTE MARTICIO
TACLOBAN CITY – The military rescued last Friday six minors, including a 14-year-old girl with meningitis, from the house of a suspected member of the New People’s Army (NPA), where they found weapons and explosives, and other ware materials in Sitio Utap, Barangay Canlampay, Carigara, Leyte.
Government troops found inside the house of a certain Edencio Dionaldo, alias Bernie Bates, a .38-caliber revolver, an improvised shotgun with six rounds of ammunition, a fragmentation grenade, two magazines for M16 rifle, ammunition of various caliber, 50 meters of electrical flat cord, improvised dry cell-powered detonator, and a binocular.
Also seized from the house were textbooks on revolutionary underground mass movement, bomb-making manual, and an identification card of a partylist group.
According to Brig. Gen. Zosimo Oliveros, commander of the 802nd Infantry Brigade, a platoon from Alpha Company of the 93rd Infantry Battalion, was pursuing the fleeing NPA rebels who abandoned a nearby encampment when they found the house of Dionaldo early Friday afternoon.
The couple was not around but seven of their children were in the house.
Brig. Gen. Oliveros said the children allowed the soldiers to go inside the house where they saw in plain view the revolutionary books, sphygmomanometer, and binocular lying around.
A closer examination of the house exposed the weapons and explosives in a corner.
Nora later arrived while the soldiers were preserving the evidence and waiting for the arrival of the police which they requested to investigate.
The soldiers arrested Dionaldo’s wife Nora and their 21-year-old son, Ernie.
Charges for illegal possession of firearms, ammunition, and explosives will be filed against the couple and their son.
“Once again, this incident proves the evil practice of the CPP-NPA of destroying families as in the case of the Dionaldo children who bore witness to the illegal practices of their father including the bomb-making instruction. Edencio Dionaldo alias Bernie Bates abandoned his 10 children, prompting three of them to work for a living. He stored weapons and explosives in the house without regard for the young kids’ safety,” Oliveros said.
