BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – The Army has released a list of what it called as “atrocities and human rights violations” committed by a ranking rebel and the guerrillas he commands in the upland villages of Guihulngan, a city in Negros Oriental 120 kilometers north of here.
Both Camp Gerona and the 62nd Battalion issued statements detailing the alleged crimes of Victoriano V Baldonado, who goes by the alias Rudy, and who commands a guerrilla unit under the Central Negros Front 1.
CN 1 is a rebel unit founded by former top Negros Communist leader Frank Fernandez in the 1990s dur8ng the so-called “rectification movement” of the Communist Party.
The 62nd said in a dispatch from Captain Dorcesimo Cuyag Jr that Baldinado was respinsible for at least four cases, some repeated over a period of years like causing fear and intimidating residents in villages that border Guihulngan with several towns in the Occidental and the Oriental.
Cuyag added Baldonado and his team killed militiaman Joselito Raboy on 24 Seotember 2922 in Montilla village in Moises Padilla, a town that borders Guihulngan with the Occidental.
He is also believed to have led the harassment of a National Police detachment twice, on 10 September and 1 November, all in 2022.
The Army also accused Baldonado of of harassing and pressuring former rebels and active New People’s Army elements who want to surrender to government forces.
Baldonado, 34,was found dead after a brief firefight between his team of five rebels and a rifle unit of the 62nd Battalion in upland community of Amumuyong in Trinidad, one of the mountain villages in Guihulngan City.
His death is the latest in a string of battlefield defeats by the Communist New People’s Army that suffered a setback when its regional commander, Romeo Nanta, was also killed in a firefight in Carabalan, an mountain village in Himamaylan City.
The Army has also reported mass surrenders of Party cadres and Red fighters this year.
DNX counted at lesst 43 surrenders since mid 2022, the latest almost the force of an entire front, 43 cadres and fighters, who all gave up to the 94th Battalion, the same unit that engaged the NPA in a series of skirmishes last month in Carabalan.
