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Notwithstanding the battlefield failures of it's Oplan Bantay Laya II anti-people counterrevolutionary campaign, top AFP officers still has the audacity to fool the public by making false claims so as to conceal the wave upon wave of defeat they have suffered in the political and military battlefields. Suffice to say that in the aftermath of this recent NPA tactical offensive, B/Gen. Holganza was a pitiful sight when he lied through his teeth as he was saying a mouthful just to smokescreen the truth. Nearly a full 2 months after the daring disarming of the Davao Penal Colony armory, another smashing head blow was again delivered against B/Gen. Holganza's troops, not to mention the several other tactical offensives launched by the NPA during this period.
Days before the successful ambush in Km. 56, Brgy. Rizal, Monkayo, Compostela Valley, the 28th IB-AFP was already conducting a military operation where various units of the AFP and the CAFGU were utilized. That a 56-man undersized company which formed part of several columns used in said military operation already in a full-offensive mode was hit and put in a defensive position through an NPA ambush tells us that AFP military superiority cannot stand up to and becomes ineffective in facing a revolutionary army engaged in guerrilla warfare in the framework of a protracted people's war. More so that such a revolutionary army – supported and cherished by the oppressed and exploited people – has a wide and deep mass base. When a huge full-combat enemy column is enticed to go deep inside guerrilla territory where the physical and social terrain is favorable to the people's army and allowed to be lulled by their numerical superiority – despite the animosity they get from the masses – , the factors that they shall be out-witted and out-maneuvered multiply several-fold.
Truth to tell, the ambush was a punishment on the 28th IB-AFP for rapidly rising to the level of the human rights and international humanitarian law notoriety of such criminal and barbaric AFP battalion as the 60th IB-AFP, to name one. The atrocities and abuses committed by the 28th IB-AFP against the people of Compostela Valley have piled up that the revolutionary masses have long clamored for a strong punishment on these real terrorists and criminals in uniform. At our own bidding, more shall be forthcoming.
In last Thursday's (June 7) dawn ambush, the 28th IB-AFP suffered casualties more than B/Gen. Holganza is willing to disclose to the public. Accounts of eyewitnesses after the combat reveal that troop decimation have reached 15 dead as a result of the command-detonated explosive- triggered ambush. One CAFGU element was briefly taken as prisoner-of-war but was immediately released. This is nowhere near what B/Gen. Holganza describes as "overrunning an NPA camp" nor a "military operation based on a tip by civilians".
Finally, we take this occasion to publicly honor the revolutionary contributions of one Red fighter martyred and offer the four high-powered rifles (2 M14 and 2 M16) seized as a fitting tribute to his martyrdom.
(sgd) Ka ROEL AGUSTIN II Spokesperson Conrado Heredia Command Front 20 Operations Command New People's Army-Southern Mindanao