Wanted NPA leader killed in Surigao del Sur clash

COTABATO CITY — The Army’s 10th Infantry Division lauded on Tuesday local executives and leaders of indigenous tribes for helping locate a New People’s Army (NPA) official wanted for 23 criminal cases, who was killed in an encounter last weekend in Lingig town in Surigao del Sur.

The chief of the NPA’s self-styled Sentro de Grabidad-Southern Mindanao Regional Committee died from multiple bullet wounds he sustained when he and his companions traded shots with personnel of the Army’s 67th Infantry Battalion in Sitio Mendezona in Barangay Rajah Cabungsuan in Lingig.

Local executives and police officials had confirmed that he was wanted for multiple murder, multiple frustrated murder, arson, armed robbery, extortion and narcotics trafficking cases that are pending in different courts in regions 10, 11, and 13.

Army Major Gen. Allan D. Hambala, commander of the 10th Infantry Division, told reporters on Tuesday that it was from local executives in Surigao del Sur province that officials of the 67th IB had learned of the presence of the NPA leader and his followers.

Local officials were quoted in Tuesday’s radio reports in Central Mindanao as saying that his followers scampered away when they ran out of ammunition, leaving him behind. — John Felix M. Unson