NPA killed, two arrested by Marines in Buldon, Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY --- Marine combatants shot dead a New People’s Army guerilla and nabbed three others in an encounter over the weekend in Buldon town in Maguindanao.

In a report to Major Gen. Juvymax Uy of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, the 1^st Marine Brigade said the slain guerilla belonged to the NPA’s self-styled Local Guerilla Unit-Southern Mindanao Regional Committee.

Leaders of the NPA’s SMRC are wanted for high-profile criminal cases pending in different courts.

Brig. Gen. Jonas Lumawag, commander of the 1^st Marine Brigade, said the encounter erupted when the NPAs attacked a team of Marines dispatched to check their reported presence in Sitio Kapatagan in Barangay Karim in Buldon.

The attack provoked a brief gunfight that resulted in the death of a guerilla and the arrest of three others.

Lumawag said the captured NPAs were immediately turned over to the Buldon municipal police, which, in turn, shall prosecute them for illegal possession of firearms.

Two Marine servicemen were wounded in the ensuing firefight, according to Lumawag.

Lumawag and Uy separately told reporters Monday communist terrorist groups from North Cotabato and Lanao Del Sur have repeatedly tried, but failed to intrude into hinterlands in Buldon owing to the security measures being imposed by the 1^st Marine Brigade in the area.  

Uy, as commander of the Army’s 6^th ID, exercises operational control over units of the Philippine Marine Corps securing municipalities in Maguindanao and in Lanao del Sur provinces.

Local leaders said the NPAs that clashed with the Marines in Barangay Karim are from a nearby upland area in North Cotabato province.