A government army sergeant and a New People’s Army guerrilla were killed in separate clashes in Samar and North Samar last Sunday. The soldier killed was a sergeant in the Army’s 46th Infantry Battalion. He was part of a detachment conducting an operation in Barangay Nagbac when this detachment was targeted by NPA guerrilla fighters. Also on Sunday, troops from the army’s 20th Infantry Regiment clashed with NPA fighters at Barangay Hitapi-an in Catubig, northern Samar. The Maoist guerrillas, from the Subregional Guerrilla Unit, retreated leaving behind the body of one of their comrades, Lino Pajanusta Norcio, alias Kidlat.