A soldier and a CAFGU Active Auxilliary (CAA) personnel were injured when an anti-personnel mine was detonated allegedly by the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Pinabacdao, Samar on Tuesday, Jan. 25.
Major Gen. Edgardo De Leon, commander of the Philippine Army’s 8thInfantry Division (8ID), said the victims were checking the location of a new military detachment that will be built in Brgy. Pelaon when the anti-personnel mine was detonated by the NPA at 8:26 a.m.
Injured were Staff Sgt. Alan Albuera, who suffered bruises and shrapnel wounds in his right abdomen, right arm, right leg, and neck; and CAA Rolando Abainza Jr., who sustained a shrapnel wound in his right leg.
Both are from the 46th Infantry Battalion (46IB), and now in stable condition at an undisclosed medical facility.
“As of this report, the wounded servicemen were already evacuated safely and brought to medical facility for treatment,” De Leon said.
According to the 8ID chief, the incident proved of the NPA and Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) “willful disregard on the safety and well-being of humanity.”
“Their continuing manufacture, stockpile, and use of anti-personnel mine is a gross disrespect to the UN convention that bans anti-personnel mines to protect humans from its mutilating effects and suffering,” De Leon said.
The 1997 Ottawa Convention prohibits the use, stockpile, production and transfer of anti-personnel mine as it causes “unnecessary suffering and desecration of human body.”
Further, De Leon noted that community leaders in Brgy. Pelaon asked the military to build a detachment to ward off communist rebels frequenting the area.
However, such idea apparently angered communist rebels, hence, they carried out the attack, he added.
De Leon said that the leaders of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represented the NPA in past peace negotiations, should be held answerable for the continuing International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations of the NPA.
Aside from NPA’s use and stockpile of the banned anti-personnel mines, De Leon accused communist rebels of abandoning explosive mines trails, “posing great risks to innocent civilians passing along.”
In 2021 alone, the 8ID discovered and safely recovered 96 pieces of abandoned anti-personnel mines in various parts of Eastern Visayas (Region 8).
Mayor Teodorico Mabag, of the municipality of Pinabacdao, condemned the NPA’s use of anti-personnel mine as “it poses significant risk to the lives of the civilian community of Brgy. Pelaon.”