NPA Armed Contacts for the Second Quarter, Part II: Ambush in New Bataan Kills a Scout Ranger

So far June of 2012 had been a very good month for the AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines, 66IB (Infantry Battalion). As I discussed in another Second Quarter entry, the 66IB repulsed a well planned NPA assault on the Sumifru Banana Plantation in the municipality of Mawab, in Compostela Valley Province, or, as its usually referred to, "ComVal."

On Friday, June 15th, 2012, an AFP convoy of 3 KM450 troop carriers was transiting the municipality of New Bataan's Barangay Bantacan. Aboard the three trucks were men from the 66IB and the 4th Scout Ranger Company, en route to 66IB Headquarters in that same municipality.

As the three trucks negotiated an "s" turn on National Hiway the NPA's Front 27, the Rhyme Petalcorin Command of the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, detonated an IED striking the last of the three trucks. Immediately wounded were two men from the 66IB:

1) Staff Sergeant Arnold Pacino

2) Corporal Jaime Clara

and two men from the Scout Rangers 4th Company:

1) First Lieutenant Rodel Daguio

2) Private First Class Richie Ursal

As small arms fire began peppering the trucks the soldiers piled out and began returning fire. As the last of the AFP soldiers took their positions the NPA guerillas broke contact and began withdrawing in different directions. The AFP began assesing the casualties and after performing triage on the four wounded men, bundled them all into the rear of one of the KM450s and drove the truck to Montevista District Hospital. Unfortunately, First Lieutenant Daguio succumbed to his injuries and died on the operating table early the next day. Instead of celebrating Fathers Day with his wife and young daughter, his loved ones were retrieving his body from a Panabo City funeral home. Fathers Day festivities will be in the form of a wake in the Daguio Family's Calinan District home in Davao City.

The 66IB's three maneuver companies were immediately deployed to implement checkpoint operations in the immediare area as the 71IB, 72IB, and the latter's CAFGU, or Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit*, deployed company sized elements in what the AFP tends to call "Hot Pursuit" operations, AFP speak for"lets stand around playing pocket pool as we torture uneducated Hilltribesmen" (*CAFGU is the lynchpin in the AFP's CAA, or Civilian Active Auxiliary program. CAA, sublimated to J5, the AFP Deputy Chief of Staff in charge of Operations, is the progeny of the Marcos Era ICHDF, or Integrated Civilain Home Defense Force. Like the IHCDF, CAFGU is considered central to the AFP's COIN, or Counterinsurgency program vis a vis the NPA. Manned by residents of a specific barangay or more rarely, a specific municipality, CAFGU posts may not operate outside the boundries of their specific batangay or municipality. In each infantry brigade there is one infantry battalion tasked with serving as that brigade's CB, or Cadre Battalion,vwhose job it is to supervise all CAFGU posts within its brigade's territory. One NCO (Non Commisioned Officer), almost always a corporal, is deployed as a Cadre Officer, commanding a CAFGU post).

At 8AM, June 16th, one of the 66IB's hastily implemented checkpoints, in New Bataan's Barangay Andap, stopped two motorcycles operating without liscence plates, the bikes having been spotted as soon as they entered Purok #1, where the checkpoint was deployed. After making all six men (three per motorcycle) dismount, soldiers quickly discovered IED components:

1) 2kg. Ammonium Phosphate

2) Twelve improvised blasting caps

3) 28 meters of red tie fuse detonating cord

All six men:

1) Gerald Baugto

2) Darwin Montella

3) Junvin Fernandez

4) Modi Linda-an

5) Danilo Maunda

6) Ernesto Bagbag

were promptly arrested and transferred to the custody of the New Bataan MPO, or Municipal Police Office. While very proud of themselves, the AFP evidently continues to care more about appearances than they do about facts, and moreover, about combatting the very real danger posed by the NPA's IEDs. The NPA's devices are indeed Command adetonated, employing detonation cord. However, while it is true the NPA has switched from Compound B to Ammonium Nitrate, gold miners AND fishermen ALSO use the substance. Gold miners also use detonation cord. New Bataan, as noted in my aforementioned (other) NPA Second Quarter of 2012 entry, is a mining community. Without even investigating the AFP has incarcerated six men not listed on any AFP Order of Battle (a list of military objectives, people, places, and things).

NPA Armed Contacts for the First Quarter of 2012, Part II: Six Guerillas Die in Attack on Sumifru

Of multi-nationals raising bananas on Mindanao, only Sumifru continues to swim against the current by refusing to buckle under to the NPA's program of "Revolutionary Taxation." Since Dole threw in the towel in 2011 and began realising that quarterly payoffs to the Maoist Insurgency left its bottom line a tad bit more healthy than regular violent attacks on personnel and equipment, only Sumifru has enjoyed 30 caliber machine gun fire, multiple truck burnings and all around terrible publicity. One would have imagined that the Japanese-based corporation might have learned a thing or two after the October 2011 attack on mining interests in the municipality of Claver, in Surigao del Norte Province. Hardest hit, in the financial sense, was Sumitomo Metal, a sister corporation to...you guessed it...Sumifru.

On Monday, January 15th, 2012, at 3AM, a green single axle dump truck with an M60 crew served machine gun mounted in the truck's dump body and covered with fourty guerillas clinging to the sides began picking up speed as it crossed into Barangay Tuburan, in the municipality of Mawab in ComVal, as Compestela Valley Province is known locally. Unbeknownst to the NPA an alert villager, uncharacteristically disloyal to the Maoist causr, quickly phoned in a warning to 10ID (Infantry Division) Headquarters, located in that same municipality. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to postulate an objective in that well trodden barangay. If the NPA were launching a forceful attack in Barangay Tuburan, it had to be against Sumifru and its large banana plantation.

10ID had quickly phoned a sublimated infantry brigade, the 1001st, and ordered the Duty Officer to quickly warn its 66IB (Infantry Battalion) that the NPA was en route to a large and somewhat vulnerable target within the 66th's AOR (Area of Responsibility). Much to his credit, the 66IB's Lieutenant Colonel Antonio "Tony" Florendo had recently deployed acstrike team to supplement Sumifru's SCAA (Special Citizens Active Auxiliary, the quasi-state sponsored paramilitary sublimated to the AFP but funded entirely by specific private business interests to which it serves as a unitary dedicated armed force). Off duty, Florendo was made aware of the situation and scrambled an entire company (120 soldiers) and Light Armored units, not taking any chances. He then readied himself to rendevouz with the aforementioned reinforcements.

As that single dump truck turned onto the Sumifru access road the SCAA post was already in full defensive mode. As the truck's tires hit the gravel stretch just before the post it was met with carefully directed fire that immediately stple the initiative from the attacking NPA and converted the NPA's fully offensive tactical operation into a holding.pattern. Asode from preventing any incoming threat from the truck mounted M60, two IED (Improvised Exolosive Devices) teams were prevented from neutralising the post's perimeter fencing.

As the attack passed the self-imposed 15 minute window at which point the NPA inevitably withdraws if unable to capture momentum, the post received word that Lieutenant Colonel Flotendo had already circumvented the requisite NPA Blocking Force and was now twenty minutes out the NPA suddenly withdrew, leaving behind the stolen dumptruck, the M60 mounted upon it, two M14s, two M16s, one 45 caliber pistol and the bodies of six dead guerillas:

1) Romeo T.Vender, 34, New Corella, Davao del Norte Province

2) Mario Ocay, 37, New Corella

3) Ener Rosquetes Etol, 22, Asuncion, Davao del Norte Province

4) Vicente P.Libre, Asuncion

5) Jose M.Elac, 50, Montevista, ComVal

6) Juan Paloma, 27 Monkayo, ComVal