A unit of the New People’s Army ambushed armed troops belonging to the 31st Infantry Battalion in Barangay Banquerohan, Legazpi City yesterday morning, January 17 killing three soldiers.

“The ambush is in response to Alabayanon’s clamor for justice for the grave crimes of the 31st IB and the police,” said Ka Florante Orobia, spokesperson of the NPA unit in Albay.

The soldiers killed in the ambush were identified as Corporal Joemar Maravilla, Private First Class Ronald Zamora, and Private First Class Reymar Palencia. The NPA seized three short firearms from them. Another soldier was wounded.

Military and police forces in Bicol are responsible for rising numbers of killings and massacres against the peasant masses as they intensify the counterinsurgency dirty war. Orobia said that at least four massacres and 34 peasants were killed by military and police counterinsurgency forces.

Peasant masses have been constant targets of the regime’s “Jakarta Style” offensive characterized by series of political assassinations, illegal arrests, torture, and forced surrenders in rural and urban centers of the region.

The 31st IB is considered as among the worst unit which carries out state terrorist tactics to suppress the people. It is responsible for the massacre of 5 civilian residents of Bulan, Sorsogon last May 2020.

The victims of the said massacre were Jeric Vuno, Jerry Palanca, Robert Villafuerte, Raymundo Tañada and Jaime Tañada.

Last January 5, Eddie Bellugo, a resident of the same barangay, was murdered Tokhang-style by combined elements of the police and military.