CPP's 'poor man's bomb' kills poor people

DURING one of those hot summer days of 1991 in Josefina, Zamboanga del Sur, a convoy of military vehicles was traversing the newly opened road, now Dumlao Highway (named after the late Lt. Paul Dumlao, PMA 1986 of the Army Engineers, who was killed in a landmine ambush while on a mission to open that road shortly after his graduation), when a Lt. Parlade ordered the convoy to stop. Just stop. The convoy commander who was a very senior officer asked who gave that order but was only told to heed, for their safety, and that I would explain later because I had none at that time.

The troops had just finished a month of combat operations in the mountains of Monterosa, which hug the borders of Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte and Misamis Occidental, that had yielded nothing. It was on instinct, as an intelligence officer, that I specifically recommended to my commander not to pick up our troops with vehicles. Instead, we would direct them to clear a portion of the rough road of possible landmines laid out by the New People's Army (NPA), on foot. It turned out that empty vehicles from the brigade passed near the troops, prompting them to board them, in spite of the instructions.