ALCALA, Pangasinan—It was like a scene in an action movie when about six-hour heavy firefight between armed men and the combined forces of police and military ensued in barangay Pindangan Centro here Thursday resulting in the killing of two suspects and wounding of another person as well as confiscation of high- powered firearms.

Chief Inspector Lenbell Fabia, the town police chief, told this writer in an interview that the 71st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, and the police from nearby Sto. Tomas town and the local police fought it out with a group of armed men who were fired upon by the suspects while they were patrolling in the area around 9:00 a.m.

“Parang giyera (It was like war),” Fabia said as he described the encounter that happened along the wide farmland about five kilometers away from the town proper.

The presence of the police and the military in the area was due to a report they received about the presence of armed men who were allegedly doing indiscriminate firing to threaten their rival group.

As a result, two suspects were killed in the encounter identified as Felipe Galleno and Rogelio Montero while wounded was Armando Lacerna who was rushed to Region 1 Medical Center in Dagupan City.

Those who surrendered after long hours of exchange of firefight were Rogelio Abaco, Francisco Parel and Revino Galleno.

Seized from them were one M16, one M14 rifle, one M1 Garand Springfield, one improvised/converted M14 rifle, one Remington shotgun and one homemade shotgun plus assorted ammunitions.

Fabia said the ballistic tests of confiscated firearms were done at the Urdaneta Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory while those arrested were subjected to paraffin tests.

The Army said the suspects belong to the New People’s Army (NPA) but the police discounted this as no subversive documents were recovered in the area and this town is not known to be NPA-infested.

Supt. Noli Taliño, deputy police director for operations, told this writer that after investigation made, the presence of the group there was more to threaten their rival group about the controversial Pindangan Estate which the two groups, identified as 178 and 302, both claim ownership of the 491- hectare land.

“Talagang ayaw nilang sumuko at binabaril nila ang mga operatives (They really refused to surrender and shot the operatives),” Taliño said.

It may be recalled that there was even a House resolution introduced by Reps. Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño and Joel Virador titled “resolution directing the Committee on Agrarian Reform to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into the problem of hundreds of farmers in the Pindangan Estate in Alcala, Pangasinan who have occupied and cultivated the area for
generations but have not become owners of such land despite Supreme Court and administration orders and a congressional committee report in the 11th Congress reiterating the distribution of the estate to its legitimate occupants and claimants”

The Pindangan Estate has been a patrimonial property of the State since Nov. 28, 1923 when it acquired said estate from Cristina Gonzales through foreclosure proceedings.

For many years after 1923, the Pindangan Estate has been the subject of dispute between two groups of farmer-tenants, the Group of 302 and the Group of 178.

It became the subject of long legal battle until on Feb. 2, 2001, a memorandum from the Undersecretary of Legal Affairs from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources moved to enforce a 50-50 sharing between the two groups through a memorandum of agreement between the officers of the two groups but was contested by a number of Group of 178 members who claimed to have not been consulted.

The legitimate farmers, occupants and cultivators of the Pindangan Estate have been clamoring for the immediate transfer of the ownership of the lands they have been long occupying, considering that the government has issued several orders for the distribution of the land as directed by the Supreme Court resolutions on the matter, the House resolution said.