Surigao town police unit relieved after NPA raid

BUTUAN CITY – The entire Cantilan town police force in Surigao del Sur was relieved on Thursday after an embarrassing New People’s Army (NPA) raid on the police detachment last Sunday. Chief Superintendent Jaime Elorita Milla, Caraga Police Regional Director, ordered the relief of the 26-member Cantilan police force headed by Police Senior Inspector Mario Balan for alleged "negligence that gave the NPA rebels the opportunity to attack." The relief order came after a 200-man NPA group raided the police detachment in the early afternoon of September 23, and emptied the detachment’s armory carting away 20 police firearms and assorted ammunitions. Milla, who assumed post on September 21, has ordered pursuit against the NPA rebels and declared full alert covering all police units throughout the Caraga region. "I have declared a full alert status in the entire Caraga regional police force in the wake of the NPA attack," Milla said. He said they are already coordinating with military counterparts, particularly the 401st and 402nd Infantry Brigades, in counter-offensives against the raiding NPA rebels. For his part, Maj. Gen. Jose Barbieto, area command chief of the Army’s Northeastern and Northern Mindanao Fourth Infantry Division, has also ordered field unit commanders to assist the PNP in pursuing the raiders in Cantilan town. This is the seventh time that the NPA staged a high-profile attack on police stations or military detachments in the Caraga where caches of firearms and ammunitions were carted away by the raiding rebels. In June 27, communist rebels conducted a pre-dawn raid against the Army’s 23rd Infantry Battalion in Barangay Lawan-Lawan, Las Nieves, Agusan del Norte and emptied the detachment’s armory. In end- 2005, NPA rebels also attacked the Municipal Police Station in Lingig, Surigao del Sur in broad daylight and held the town mayor hostage and used him as human shield as NPA rebels ransacked the police station situated just beside the municipal hall. - Alvin Guanzon, GMANews.TV