Rebel leader or security guard? NDF, AFP debate identity of detainee

From InterAksyon (Oct 16): Rebel leader or security guard? NDF, AFP debate identity of detainee

The National Democratic Front and the Armed Forces of the Philippines are taking swipes at each other over the real identity of a man the military claims is a ranking communist rebel leader. On October 5, the AFP announced the capture of Benjamin Mendoza, alleged member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines and secretary of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee, and his wife and fellow STRPC member Josephine Mendoza. However, the NDF claims the man “abducted” by military agents and police in Cubao, Quezon City is not Mendoza but Rolly Panesa, a security guard at the ACP Compound in Eastwood and a resident of Project 4. “The Armed Forces of the Philippines is up to its old tricks again of illegally arresting civilians and parading them as leaders of the revolutionary movement," Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the NDF’s peace negotiating committee, said in a statement. "They abduct torture and detain people, and identify them as leaders of the revolutionary movement. In this case, it turns out that they arrested a civilian security guard,” he added. But Colonel Generoso Bolina, Southern Luzon Command spokesman, maintained they had captured Mendoza and that Rolly Panesa is just one of the aliases the rebel leader uses. “We have four witnesses against him, one a direct witness to his crime in Mauban (Quezon)…three former rebels who positively identified him,” Bolina said. Mendoza, he added, is facing several warrants of arrest, including one for a rebellion case, and a P5.6-million bounty on his head....

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/45668/rebel-leader-or-security-guard-ndf-afp-debate-identity-of-detainee