The National Security Council (NSC) on Monday, August 14, strongly condemned the latest bomb and gun attack allegedly committed by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Uson, Masbate which left three persons seriously wounded, including a local government official.

National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said a five-man NPA hit team detonated an explosive device and fired shots that injured Democrito Rivera, barangay captain of Barangay Bonifacio in Uson municipality; and civilians Romneck Lumabab and Alex Balayan.

“This latest terror attack perpetrated by the NPA only shows the group’s brand of violence that placed it as the 15th deadliest terrorist organization in the world as indicated in the 2023 Global Terrorism Index,” Año said.

“The perpetrators of this dastardly and cowardly act will not go unpunished,” he added.

The attack came at the heels of the global observance of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) last August 12.

Año called out the NPA’s continued use of banned landmines and its persistent attacks on civilian targets, which he stressed “are both gross violations of international and domestic laws.”

“We wish to reiterate our government’s strong commitment to uphold the tenets of the IHL of the Geneva Convention and Republic Act No. 9851 (An Act Defining and Penalizing Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity). Likewise, our government strongly upholds the enforcement of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty,” the NSA said.

Año reiterated that the NPA “is already a spent force and a dying group of ideologues gasping for its last breath.”

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) had said before that there remains 1,800 active NPA fighters in the country from a peak of 24,000 in the 1980s.

Año commiserated with the victims and their families who were affected by the bomb and gun attack.