CAMP GENERAL EMILIO AGUINALDO, Quezon City – Army soldiers discovered Thursday a cave at Sitio Kalinawan, Brgy. Taocanga, Man-ay, Davao Oriental full of items believed to be a New People’s Army’s (NPA) factory of explosive devices.
Troops under Ltc Reuben Basiao, Battalion Commander of the 67th Infantry Battalion found the bomb factory.
"The cave is under the NPA’s Merardo Arce Command wherein they harbor materials needed to construct Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and other explosives," Basiao said.
The inventory of items found in the said NPA bomb factory are: two anti armor IEDs, four anti pers IEDs, ¾ Kgs white powder, seven unfinished anti-pers IEDs, 6 unfinished anti-armor IEDs, 500 meters of detonation cord, 14 pieces blasting cap, 700 pieces liquid explosives, 1 set Stanley wrench, 1 electric drill, 20 pieces claymore adhesive iron, two pieces soldering gun, 10 pieces fuse, nine set resistors, 10 pieces ballast, 50 pieces alligator clips, 29 pieces switch, 11 pieces dead man’s switch, 5 pieces hammer, three pieces mallet, one pc metal saw, four pieces file, two pieces tri square, one piece mold for anti personnel IEDs, 18 kgs metal shrapnel, two sets claymore molds, one pc tinsmith, one pc blow torch, one pc clamp, four rolls of wire, 300 gms of sulfur, nine pieces plastic pipes, three liters oil, six bottles of poly vinell chloride solution, one piece port bypass circuits, one roll plastic hose, one piece weighing scale, and 22 bottles of acetone.
The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) entered into an agreement with the Philippine Government called as the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).
The CARHRIHL is the first of four agreements in the substantive agenda of the formal talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (PHL) and the NDFP which was signed on March 16, 1998 in the Hague, The Netherlands and was approved on April 10, 1998 by the NDFP National Council Chairperson Maria Orosa and on August 7, 1998 by then PHL President Joseph E. Estrada.
"We will continue to invoke CARHRIHL upon the NPA. We are pleased to have discovered and potentially shut down this factory and we know that this will relatively cripple the capability of the NPA to launch atrocities against our citizens," AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo S.L. Oban Jr. said.
CARHRIHL implies that parties involved in the agreement should avow and apply the principles of international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population and individual civilians, as well as persons deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict and also guarantees the right against economic and food blockades and indiscriminate bombings, shelling, strafing, gunfire and the use of landmines.
AFP
