Red fighters reap victories in Samar
Sixteen soldiers were killed and at least nine were wounded in a series of clashes between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the New People's Army (NPA) in Samar from June to the first week of August. Aside from launching tactical offensives, the NPA successfully defended itself against intense military operations during this period.
 The key to these victories was the the masses' broad and firm support for the people's army, said Jose Sumuroy, spokesperson of the Efren Martires Command of the NPA in Eastern Visayas. Oftentimes, said Sumuroy, it is the peasants themselves who alert the NPA about enemy forces they have spotted.
Three soldiers were killed and five were wounded after 80 soldiers attacked an NPA encampment along the border of Catarman, Northern Samar and Calbayog City, Western Samar on August 2. It was but the latest in a series of AFP defeats in the hands of the NPA. Prior to this, two soldiers were also killed in a firefight on July 11 in Barangay Cagdao, Silvino Lobos, Northern Samar.
On July 6, the NPA ambushed a unit of the 20th IB in Barangay Makatingog, Calbayog City, Western Samar, where two soldiers were killed and an undetermined number of troops wounded.
Two days before, combined forces of the 14th IB and 63rd IB had ambushed an NPA squad in Dolores, Eastern Samar. The NPA was able to seize the initiative and killed the 14th IB's commanding officer.
The Red fighters' victory during the clash in Dolores was a follow-through to three successive firefights between the AFP and NPA in Eastern Samar in June in which seven soldiers were killed and three were wounded.
On June 16, the 14th IB, together with the 63rd IB, attacked an NPA unit stationed in a barrio of Maslog. Instead of inflicting casualties on the NPA, five soldiers perished in battle while two of them were wounded. Before this, the 14th IB and Scout Rangers had already assaulted an undersized NPA platoon in the same town on June 12. But it was the military that sustained one dead and one wounded in the firefight that they themselves had initiated.
Ironically, the two attacks in Maslog by the 14th IB were meant to avenge an NPA ambush on June 4 in Barangay Amantacop, Borongan that killed two soldiers and wounded another.
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