BY MAE SINGUAY and RANIE AZUE
BACOLOD City – After the death of a barangay captain in the hands of rebels, Mayor Joselito Malabor of Isabela, Negros Occidental considers insurgency in his town “alarming.”
Four other barangay captains are under threat, Malabor told the press without disclosing names.
They were among seven village chiefs from Isabela who went to Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Castil, director of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, last week and sought for protection, the mayor said.
It was not immediately clear where the threat was from.
Malabor met with the Municipal Peace and Order Council last Friday for an assessment of the locality’s peace and order situation.
Personnel from the 12th and 94th infantry battalions of the Philippine Army are augmenting the police force in Isabela, he said.
But the New People’s Army (NPA) said they are not afraid of any additional law enforcement personnel.
Police and military officers will be “confronted with the full force of the NPA,” the Leonardo Panaligan Command of the NPA Central Negros Guerilla Front said in a statement.
Rebel spokesperson Ka JB Regalado said they will “launch additional tactical offensives against state forces.”
The rebels also denied that the NPA are threatening Isabela village chiefs. Regalado said this is just a “concocted scenario” of the police and the military “to justify their presence in upland communities.”
Massive military operations in Isabela, Binalbagan and neighboring towns have resulted in “massive dislocation and forced evacuations of farmers and peasants,” the rebels claimed.
Castil himself was alarmed by the killings of village chiefs. The ones behind these must be stopped, he said.
Barangay Captain Rhoy Pagapang, 38, of Libas, Isabela was shot to death on Aug. 20 in Barangay Cabcab. On Aug. 10, former village chief Agapito Euroba of Barangay San Agustin was also gunned down.
The rebels owned up to both killings. They accused Pagapang and Euroba of being “military assets.”
Barangays San Agustin and Cabcab are “insurgency hotspots,” Malabor claimed.
The mayor assured that activities in the town go on as usual. The local government is entrusting peace and order to the police and the military, he said./PN
