PNP News Releases 2006

NPA SABOTEURS HUNTED

Police commandos are spearheading PNP action against New People's Army dissidents who figured in three latest hostilities in Negros Occidental, Davao Oriental and Batangas provinces. The PNP earlier fielded five companies of Special Action Force troops in different regions of the country to lead internal security operations against the armed members of the local communist movement.

According to PNP Spokesman, Senior Superintendent Samuel D Pagdilao Jr., the SAF troops have joined elements of the 6 th Regional Mobile Group based in Western Visayas in conducting pursuit operations against a group of NPA that sabotaged the ongoing construction of the New Bacolod International Airport in Silay City at dawn yesterday.

Philippine Army troops stationed in Negros Occidental have also joined the pursuit operations against the NPA group that disarmed security guards on duty at the airport construction site and set on fire a power generator set and equipment used in mixing bulk concrete.

In Mati, Davao Oriental, NPA dissidents torched a telecommunication facility cutting off cellular communication in the province' capital town yesterday.

Pagdilao said both incidents were the NPA's retribution for the refusal of the construction firm that is building the New Bacolod International Airport, and the communication network that operates the cellsite in Davao Oriental, from giving in to the extortion demands of the NPA. In Batangas province, a beach resort became the subject of similar hostile action of the NPA.

"This latest series of hostilities by the NPA describe their desperation in generating more funds for the movement, purposely to finance the activities of their legal front organizations and to support the lavish lifestyles of their leaders," Pagdilao said.

Local police units are also preparing criminal charges against NPA personalities involved in these incidents.