The military in the Visayas is escalating its offensives against the New People's Army following the ambush that killed nine soldiers and injured 20 others in Calinog town in Iloilo, Gen. Alphonsus Crucero, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said last night.

Crucero told the DAILY STAR the 3rd Division had been on the offensive against the NPA even before the Calinog attack but now they will step up their pursuit of the rebels in Negros, Panay, Cebu and Bohol.

The best defense is offense, we will go after those who sow terror and undermine the law, we will find them in their lairs, Crucero said.

Angered by the spate of violent attacks on the military and the police by the NPA, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo yesterday ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines to abandon its defensive posture and go on the offensive against the communist rebels, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in statement issued by Malacañang.

Ermita explained that the President's directive to the AFP is intended to counter the new offensives of the NPA rebels in Calinog that left nine soldiers dead and in Lucban, Quezon that left a policeman killed and three injured Saturday, and minimize casualties on the government side.

"To be sure, we will minimize the casualty on our side. We will go on the offensive. The Armed Forces have been given the directive to go on the offensive against the CPP-NPA," he said.

Ermita said the latest NPA attacks on government forces using an outlawed weapon of war like a land mine, clearly showed that the description of "terrorists" fit the NPA.*CPG

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Yesterday, Crucero also said the use of landmines by the New People's Army in the Calinog ambush is prohibited under the Geneva Convention, and has confirmed that they are "terrorists".

"Since they are terrorists, they are not covered by laws of land warfare," Crucero said.

Among the casualties and those injured in the ambush by suspected communist guerillas in Calinog, Iloilo on Saturday, were Scout Rangers who were recently deployed in Panay and troopers of the 47th Infantry Battalion.

Col. Jogy Leo Fojas, 303rd Infantry Brigade commander, yesterday said there is a possibility that the NPA Army in Negros will replicate what their colleagues did in Panay.

In previous years, homemade explosives were also seized by 11th Infantry Battalion soldiers from a rebel camp they overran in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental.

The Iloilo ambush that claimed the lives of nine soldiers was the second biggest loss in terms of casualties to the 3rd Infantry Division since five years ago.

In August 21, 2000, 17 Army soldiers also died in an ambush staged by suspected New People's Army rebels in Sitio Bulod, Brgy. Carabalan, Himamaylan City.

In the Calinog incident, military investigations show communist rebels detonated two landmines that hit an Elf cargo truck loaded with Army soldiers.

The force of the blasts reportedly lifted the cargo truck off the ground, and created two craters, each around two meters wide and a meter deep.

Maj. Lyndon Sollesta, 3rd ID spokesman, said they are still investigating if the Panay-based NPA have augmentation from other guerilla fronts in Negros, Cebu and Bohol.

This was after Maj. Marinito Casabuenas, chief of the AFP Civil Relations Group in Western Visayas, claimed that 200 newly-trained rebels in Panay were dispatched to Negros and neighboring islands on test missions.*GPB

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