Wanted NPA amazon killed in clash with soldiers

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Soldiers shot dead a long wanted woman in the New People’s Army in an encounter before dawn Tuesday in Barangay Barangay Malagalad in Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur.

In initial reports on Tuesday morning, the Army’s 102nd Infantry Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division and the Zamboanga del Sur Provincial Police Office separately said that the slain NPA amazon, Aprecia Alvarez Rosette, also known as Bambam, died from multiple gunshot wounds sustained in a clash with soldiers at past 3:00 a.m. Tuesday in a secluded area in Barangay Malagalad.

Soldiers found beside her body an Ak 47 Kalashnikov assault rifle, a .45 caliber pistol, and other personal belongings.

Rosette, a field commander and a senior official of the NPA’s self-styled Western Mindanao Revolutionary Party Committee, is wanted for a number of criminal cases, including multiple murder, frustrated murder, extortion and armed robbery in different courts in Region 9 that covers Mindanao’s Zamboanga peninsula.

The Zamboanga del Sur PPO and the Dumingag Municipal Police Station both reported that the brief gunfight that resulted in the death of Rosette erupted when she and her companions opened fire at soldiers dispatched to check reports by villagers about their presence in Barangay Malagalad, forcibly collecting money and food from hapless farmers.

Rosette’s companions scampered away and left her when they sensed that combined personnel of the Army’s 53rd and 92nd Battalions who figured in the gunfight were about to surround their location.

Army and police officials said the operation that resulted in the death of Rosette was assisted by different units of the Police Regional Office 9 and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency.