North Cotabato cops survive NPA's roadside bomb

KIDAPAWAN CITY — Police officers in North Cotabato town on Friday survived a roadside bomb in Matalam town but the police vehicle they were riding was hit.Senior Inspector Sunny Leoncito, Matalam town police chief, said a police car with three police officers was heading toward a village of Kibia, also in Matalam, when a roadside bomb was set off at 9:30 a.m. Our police officers were all safe, Leoncito told DXND-AM Radyo Bida.But the blast destroyed the police vehicle's windshield and bumper. The vehicle was about a meter away from the command detonated explosive, Leoncito added.Leoncito blamed suspected New Peoples Army guerillas in the attack.After the blast, three armed men believed to be NPAs and positioned atop a hillopened fire on the stunned law enforcers, triggering a brief firefight until the NPAs fled.Leoncito said the attackers fled toward the village of Salvacion after sensing the coming of military reinforcement. Police and Army bomb experts recovered at the blast site several PVC pipes, wiring and metal fragments which served asshrapnel.Leoncito said the bomb was a signature weapon of mass destruction of communist guerillas. The Matalam PNP unit was on its way to Barangay Kibia to attend a meeting of Alamara and Bagani tribal group of Indigenous Peoples in North Cotabato. No word from the NPA about the incidentas of this posting.