KIDAPAWAN Philippines, Cotabato - The New Peoples' Army (NPA) admitted in a press statement issued on Friday that they are holding as "prisoners of war" (POWs) a policeman and a soldier they seized on Thursday on the highway in Compostela Valley province.
Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesman for the NPA Merardo Arce Command, said that members of their Guerrilla Front 34 conducted the checkpoint in Barangay Mangloy, Laak town, where the two government men were "arrested."
The two abducted uniformed personnel were earlier identified by the military as Private First Class Jezreel Colanggo of the 60th Infantry Battalion and Police Officer 1 Ruel Pasion of the San Isidro Municipal Police Station.
Sanchez said both men are "being treated well." "Their safety is our primordial consideration as the NPA abides the tenets of the International Humanitarian Law," he said
