TREACHEROUS. Residents carry a body of a policeman killed in an anti-personnel mine attack by the New People's Army (NPA) in Las Navas, Northern Samar on Monday (April 4, 2022). Police and military officials condemned on Tuesday (April 5) the treacherous attack by the NPA that killed a police officer and hurt five others from the government side. (Photo courtesy of Northern Samar police)
TACLOBAN CITY – Police and military officials said Tuesday criminal charges will be filed against members of the New People’s Army for the attack that killed a police officer and hurt five others in Las Navas, Northern Samar.
“Charges will be filed against those responsible for the crime. We call upon the Commission on Human Rights to investigate this treacherous attack of the terrorist group. The use of anti-personnel mine clearly defies and violates the objectives of the International Human Rights Law in general,” Philippine National Police Eastern Visayas Regional Director Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac said.
He said government forces were just heading to Las Navas town center to get booster shots on Monday morning when the communist terrorist group detonated an anti-personnel mine in San Miguel village.
Killed on the spot was Pat. Harvie Lovino, 30, of San Isidro, Northern Samar.
Injured by the roadside blast were three policemen and two soldiers.
“We are in deep sorrow having lost a comrade. Such loss is not only painful to his family but for the whole organization as well. I have directed all units to conduct hot pursuit operations against the suspects,” Banac said.
The police fatality and those injured belong to the government’s retooled Community Support Program (CSP) team deployed in remote Osang village of nearby Catubig town.
CSP is a flagship program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines used to clear communities of NPA infestation while neutralizing the politics-military structure the rebels established in the villages.
Lt. Col. Joemar Buban, commander of the Philippine Army’s 20th Infantry Battalion, scored the NPAs for the violation of the Mine Ban Treaty that prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines.
"The Philippine Army has been doing its best to help the conflict-affected barangays through our CSP teams to achieve long-lasting peace and sustainable development, but the NPA returned in an attempt to recover their lost mass base,” Buban said in a separate statement.
The recent NPA atrocities prompted the military and police to redeploy CSP teams in conflict-affected villages to ensure the project implementation of the Barangay Development Program (BDP).
The villages of San Miguel in Las Navas and Osang in Catubig are two of the six villages in Northern Samar covered by the national government’s BDP.
Each village is a recipient of the PHP20 million infrastructure projects such as farm-to-market roads, school buildings, village health stations, and water supply systems.
The BDP, a hallmark program of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, brings development to former conflict-prone communities.
Alma Gabin, former education deputy secretary of the NPA Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee, said the attack is proof that the NPA has weakened.
"The recent ambush perpetrated by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-NPA in Las Navas, Northern Samar shows their desperate move to appear significant amidst their weakening condition," she said in a statement.
Gabin, captured by the police in 2021, said the NPA is fully aware that the use of anti-personnel mine is prohibited but the communist rebels still use it, even putting civilians in danger.
“Because of this, they become more isolated and hated by the masses,” she added.
The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
The Anti-Terrorism Council also formally designated the National Democratic Fund as a terrorist organization on June 23, 2021, citing it as “an integral and inseparable part” of the CPP-NPA that was created in April 1973. (PNA)
