NOPPO to get 84 cops

The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office will have 84 more new policemen starting next month. Senior Supt. Rosendo Franco, police provincial director, yesterday said he is now finalizing the list of police units to avail of the new policemen from 6th Regional Mobile Group.

Franco, however, said he may give priority to the Provincial Mobile Groups, which are being primed for use in the counter-insurgency campaign.

Franco added, that he will download policemen who have been assigned at PMG units for several years , to police stations.

Senior Supt. Pedro Merced, director of the 6th Regional Mobile Group, yesterday said 110 RMG troopers will be downloaded from his unit in April.

Eighty-four neophyte policemen will be allocated to NOPPO and 18 for the Bacolod City Police Office, Merced added.

More than 250 new policemen who recently graduated from the Scout Ranger Orientation Course have been incorporated into the 6th RMG.

Another 110 are now undergoing Internal Security Operations training in Iloilo City.

Franco said the Pulupandan Police Station will be among the police units in Negros Occidental, to receive additional policemen.*GPB

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Improvised gas lamps
lobbed at leftists' house

ILOILO CITY -- Motorcycle-riding persons threw improvised gas lamps at a house here where campaign materials of militant party-list groups are being made, at dawn yesterday.

No one was hurt but the tarpaulin roofing of the hut was slightly burned, Wenefredo Dublezo, spokesperson of the party-list group Bayan Muna in Panay, said in an interview.

The gas lamps, made from plastic bottles of mineral water were filled with gasoline and a cloth wick attached, were thrown at around 3 a.m. at the hut in Barangay Sto. Niño Sur in Arevalo District here, a report of the Arevalo police station said.

One of the bottles ignited and burned the roof while the other fell to the ground.

John Lañada, 25, a Bayan Muna volunteer who was sleeping inside the house, said the suspects sped off in at least two motorcycles. He could not identify any of them because of the blackout that hit city at dawn until yesterday morning.

The house is situated on a lot managed by Maria Luisa Dominado, 51, a former political detainee and spokesperson of the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya (Selda) on Panay Island.

Dublezo said the house is being used to manually reproduce streamers, posters and other campaign materials of Bayan Muna and party-list groups Kabataan Party, Gabriela Women's Party and Anakpawis.

Dublezo said they consider this the first case of violence on Panay Island against party-list groups.

He said the incident was part of the systematic campaign of the administration to stop the party-list groups from winning in the May elections.

"The logical conclusion is that this incident is the handiwork of the administration and is among their dirty tactics to destroy us," said Dublezo.

He said this is related to the arrest and transfer of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo to Leyte, the continued detention of Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran, and the filing of criminal and disqualification cases against their leaders.

Dublezo said campaign materials of the party-list groups are also being removed from designated poster areas in the public plaza in the city.

Senior Supt. Wesley Barayuga, Iloilo City police director, said they are still investigating the incident. "We have no suspects because the witness saw no one," Baruga said in a telephone interview.

He said they could not rule out the possibility that the incident is election-related.

Around 100 Bayan Muna members and supporters held a picket at the Plazoletagay here yesterday to protest the continued attacks against their members and to denounced the arrest and transfer of Ocampo.*NPB

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