ZAMBOANGA CITY, 9 April 2007 — A drunken soldier was responsible for the shooting spree inside an Army patrol base in Sulu that left at least nine troopers and a civilian dead early Saturday, sources said.

The sources said the drunken soldier, who had earlier figured in an altercation, grabbed an M60 light machinegun and opened fire at other troopers at the patrol base of the 35th Infantry Battalion in Barangay (village) Silangkan in Parang town around 3 a.m. on Saturday.

The civilian fatality, who remained unidentified, was reportedly fetching water near the detachment and was hit by a stray bullet.

They said the amok was later overpowered and was under tightly guard at the headquarters of the 35th IB in Indanan town.

The military’s Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) here remained tightlipped about the incident although Maj. Gen. Nehemias Pajarito, commander of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division based in Zamboanga del Sur, confirmed the deaths.

However, he stressed that investigation was still going on and they have yet to establish that the amok killed the 10.

Pajarito said initial an earlier report said that somebody had ran amok in the detachment.

He added that initial investigation also showed that the gunfire came from “an entrenched bunker” inside the detachment but they could not say who the shooter was or if there was more than one gunman.

Pajarito said they were also looking into the possibility of a suicide attack.

He said they were also trying to establish the identity and gender of the civilian.

“Until now, we don’t have the identity of the civilian. Even the barangay captain, whom we requested to identify the civilian, said he doesn’t recognize the person,” he said.

Pajarito declined to identify the slain soldiers.

Senior Superintendent Ahirum Ajirim, Sulu police chief, said the police had been told about the incident but that the details were not clear.

CPP Lauds NPA for Davao Weapons Haul

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) yesterday congratulated the New People’s Army (NPA) in Davao City for seizing more than a hundred firearms in a bloodless raid on the Davao Prison and Penal Farm earlier in the day and urged its armed wing to launch more offensives.

CPP spokesman Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal called the raid by the NPA’s Merardo Arce Command a “notably successful tactical offensive” and said the arms would “arm more than a hundred new recruits.”

He also urged the NPA elsewhere in the country to “emulate” the Davao raid and “carry out more tactical offensives nationwide and seize more arms from the enemy.”

“The CPP challenges all NPA units to carry out one tactical offensive after another, surpass the (Davao) arms haul, punish the worst fascist criminals and plunderers, deal bigger blows against the Arroyo regime and raise the people’s war to a new and higher level,” Rosal said.

Security officials said some 40 NPA guerrillas, clad in military uniforms with the insignia of the Davao City-based anti-terrorist Task Force Davao, disarmed the prison guards then emptied the facility’s armory of four M16 rifles, 45 carbines, five caliber .38 revolvers, 46 shotguns and ammunition.

Rosal called the raid “a big blow against the Arroyo regime, its fascist campaign of terrorism and suppression, its arrogance and pretensions of invincibility and indefinite staying-power.”

“The Filipino people, revolutionary forces and units of the New People’s Army (NPA) celebrate this victory,” Rosal said. “It inspires them further to intensify the people’s war, the mass struggles and other forms of struggle against the Arroyo regime.”

­— With input from Agencies