Seven alleged members of New People's Army (NPA) were killed in a law enforcement operation in Antique early Wednesday.

Chief Supt. John Bulalacao, regional police director, said police and military forces were serving warrant of arrest for frustrated murder against Jason Talibo alias Bebe and Joven Ceralvo alias Lex when the encounter occurred at the vicinity of Brgy. Atabay, San Jose around 12:10 am.

Bulalacao said the 33-minute firefight resulted in the killing of Talibo and six others, five of them were identified as Karen Ceralvo, Felix Salditos, Jason Sanchez, Rene Yap, and Liezel Bandiola. Ceralvo was able to evade the arrest.

“The suspects who chose to put up a fight against our police and military operatives have been victimizing community members and business owners here in Panay,” he said.

Bulalacao said authorities recovered extortion letters labelled from the Napoleon Tumagtang Command of Southern Front, list of persons and business organizations.

“The extortion letters, assorted firearms, cash and bank books recovered are proofs of their criminal activities,” he said.

Bulalacao said also recovered were three hand grenades, two 40mm ammo, two rifle grenade, one homemade single shot shotgun 12 gauge, two homemade .38, one homemade KJ9, three magazines KJ9, two empty magazine of unknown firearms, two laptops (Apple Mac Book Pro, Lenovo), one netbook (emachine), 22 analog cellphones, seven android cellphone, five tablet, one Canon DSLR camera, five Canon DSLR spare batteries, two pocket wifi, one powerbank, three SD card, one USB, 22 assorted Sim cards, three transistor radio, four disposable lighters, four watches, 14 assorted cellphone chargers, four headsets, one keyboard, assorted wires, one bolo and other items.

After the operation, Bulalacao alerted police stations in Western Visayas to be proactive against possible retaliatory attacks since several of those killed are ranking NPA officials. Robina Asido/DMS