Friday, July 18, 2008 Communist rebels attack Sarangani jail By Ben O. Tesiorna and Carlo P. Mallo
SUSPECTED communist rebels attacked the Sarangani provincial jail with mortar shells in the capital town of Alabel Wednesday night, in a bid to free a detained comrade, but security forces repulsed the raid, the military said Thursday.
The incident happened a day after a pillbox exploded right in front of a police station in General Santos City and while nearby South Cotabato province was celebrating the Tinalak Festival, which ends Friday.
The Sarangani attackers failed in their attempt as no inmate was reported to have escaped and neither the armed men were able to enter the detention center.
Major Armand Rico, public information officer of the Eastern Mindanao Command, said Army troops backed by two armored vehicles responded within minutes of the attack around 9 p.m. Wednesday and prevented the Sarangani provincial jail from being overrun.
"They were looking for a shock effect. If the jail was less defended, they would have gotten inside," he said. "Our response was coordinated."
Rico said three rounds of 40mm M203 rounds were fired into the Sarangani jail, but no casualty was reported.
He said troops from the Joint Task Force Gensan were immediately deployed in the area, together with two armored vehicles from the Regional Mobile Group.
"Our troops are still scouring the vicinity," he said Thursday afternoon.
He said an initial investigation indicated the rebels were planning to free a detained comrade but refused to provide more details.
Governor Miguel Dominguez requested for immediate reinforcements to the area.
Police and military units in and around the area were also instructed to conduct checkpoints. The New People's Army (NPA) rebels did not comment on the raid.
The incident happened a day after a pillbox exploded right in front of a police station in General Santos City. The incident happened around 7 p.m. on July 15 at police station number 5 in Barangay Tambler.
The culprit readily fled the area after the incident. Police authorities suspect that the culprit could be a relative of one of their inmates.
Authorities are still not discounting though that terrorists were behind the explosion since an intelligence report a few days ago showed there were plans to bomb several installations in the region.
But communist rebels have also stepped up their 40-year-old Maoist insurgency since quitting peace talks with the government four years ago.
In a recent statement, the rebels, thought to have 5,000-7,000 members, said the ongoing tactical offensives were meant to punish President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's government for "despicable crimes of large-scale corruption, imperialist plunder, and fascist atrocities."
Arroyo has dismissed the rebels as an ideologically spent force and ordered the military to defeat them by the time she steps down in 2010.
The rebels have outlived successive Philippine presidents by attacking remote military and police outposts to seize badly needed weapons and by extorting money from business establishments.
The US and European governments consider the New People's Army a terrorist organization and have moved to cut off its funding. (With AP)
