MORE than a week after the successful anti-terrorist operation launched by the 8TH Infantry Division of the Philippine Army in Dolores, Eastern Samar that killed 19 New People’s Army (NPA) terrorists, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) issued a statement admitting defeat as it considered the result as a “big loss” to the local communist armed movement.
“Without a doubt, the death of the Dolores martyrs is a big loss,” said CPP information officer, Marco Valbuena, in a statement posted at the CPP website, Philippine Revolution Web Central (PRWC), last August 24, 2021.
He claimed, however, that the NPA’s battlefield defeat—its worst in recent memory— is just “a temporary setback and does not negate the overall forward direction of the people’s war.”
M/Gen. Pio Diñoso, 8TH ID commander, in a press briefing afterwards, said they immediately planned for a military offensive after validating intelligence provided by residents of Dolores town that the terrorists are maintaining a huge camp in the village of Osmeña.
He said they are prompted to use the military’s air assets after also being informed that the NPA have placed anti-personnel mines (APMs) in the camp’s vicinity.
As a result, the command did not suffer a single casualty while 16 of the estimated 50-man terrorist band were immediately killed, four of them women in the operation launched last August 16, 2021 and where the firefight took nearly 13 hours, from 4 am to 5 pm.
The bodies of 3 more terrorists were discovered by government troops during the clearing operation (see also Pinoy Exposé Issue No. 31/32).
The operation was also the biggest launched by the Philippine Army in the last two years, the official noted.
Diñoso said the terrorists they encountered were “remnants” of other NPA units from other parts of Samar Island who were forced to join their forces due to the successful ‘focus military operation’ (FMO) the command has been launching in Samar since last year.
Diñoso’s prediction that the encounter would also result to the surrender of other NPA members also proved be prescient, after the surrender to the division of Norly Abadiano Pacimos, an NPA squad leader (Squad 3).
Pacimos was among those who luckily survived the military offensive.
In a statement, the division said Pacimos, who was wounded, was assisted by “concerned citizens” from Bgy. Gap-Ang, Dolores, in effecting his surrender.
“Sumuko ako kasi hindi ko na kaya at wala ng masa na tutulong sa amin bukod pa sa lumalakas na puwersa ng gobyerno kaya nanawagan ako sa mga kasamahan kong NPA na bumaba na at sumuko dahil wala tayong laban sa gobyerno,” Pacimos declared.
The military said they expect more surrender to occur in the coming days as more and more NPA in Samar start to realize the futility of their armed struggle.