The Philippine Army announced that there no death toll during
its encounter with the New People’s Army in Baracatan on July 8, while the
police reported later that two government troops were confirmed dead.
The NPA side said that
six troopers were killed and there are six others who were wounded in the
ambush.
Isabel Fermiza,
spokesperson of the Mt. Apo Subregional Command of the NPA, said that the ambush
also contested that Toril and the nearby town of Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur is
“NPA free” because of the AFP’s Peace and Development Outreach Program (PDOP)
and that the “claims of accomplishment are merely to justify the huge and
heavily purloined AFP budget and the funds funneled from mining and capitalists
that finance the ongoing massive military operations in Southern Mindanao.”
Fermiza said that the AFP has failed to wipe out any single
guerrilla front in the region and to prevent the NPA from forming more fighting
and fully-armed platoons.
Capt. Ernest Carolina, deputy public affairs officer of the
Army’s 10th ID, recounted their version of the events of July 8 when the
Special Action Forces of the police first spotted the rebels.
Carolina said that they
already gathered the information that the NPS is approaching now in Davao City
from Mt. Talmo which is already in the border of North Cotabato (province).
Police Inspector Jed Clamor who is the Chief of Regional Public
Information of the Philippine National Police XI said during a television
interview that there are two of the SAF who were killed in the ambush.
Lt. Col. Lyndon Paniza of
the Eastmincom, last April’s interview, said that two battalions of soldiers
from Luzon and one battalion from the Visayas were diverted to the Davao
Region.
Human rights group Karapatan however said that a total of 25
battalions of the Army are currently deployed in the region and warned his
would result to an “increase in human rights violations.”
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