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BY RANIE AZUE
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Friday, October 20, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Police are required to immediately respond to crime incidents.
The military believes the New People’s Army (NPA) is seeing this as the officers’ vulnerability.
Colonel Eliezer Losañes, commander of the Philippine Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade, said the rebels are luring police officers into situations that make the latter easier to ambush.
He called it “catch and bait.”
The Army is closely working with the Negros Occidental police to counter this tactic, said Losañes.
The military official himself admitted that the mandate of the police to immediately respond to crimes makes them prone to attacks.
Losañes suggested revisiting the Philippine National Police’s standard operating procedures.
Suspected NPA rebels ambushed police officers in Barangay Caliling, Cauayan town early this month.
Five police officers on board a patrol vehicle were responding to a robbery alarm when the suspected rebels who positioned themselves on the hills fired at them at around 1 p.m. on Oct. 3.
The officers were unharmed but three civilians were wounded when the police and the attackers traded gunshots.
In July, suspected NPA rebels also ambushed police officers in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental.
Six officers, including their chief Superintendent Arnel Arpon, and a civilian were killed in the attack in the hinterland village of Magsaysay./PN
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