From Malaya (Sep 2): Suspected NPA freed on disputed ID
THE Armed Forces is wary that a ranking leader of the communist New People’s Army would go back to the underground movement after he was freed last Friday on orders of the Court of Appeals due to an identity issue.
A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the intelligence community would be monitoring the movements of Benjamin Mendoza or Rolly Panesa who was released from jail by the Bureau of Management and Penology last Friday.
“Initially he may not but eventually he would,” the official said of Mendoza, alleged secretary of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee, who was arrested by the military in October last year in Quezon City for murder and kidnapping.
Last month, the military leadership even gave a P5.6-million reward to an informant who provided information that led to the arrest of Mendoza.
The CA last week approved the habeas corpus case that Panesa filed, and ordered his release because authorities were not able to prove that he is Benjamin Mendoza as alleged by the military.
The official said the Office of the Solicitor General has asked the CA to reconsider its decision.
“What the troops will do is try to locate him, to monitor if he would go back to the mountains....Our monitoring will continue because most (NPA personalities) who were released from detention have returned (to the underground movement),” he said.
He noted the case of the so-called Morong 43 whose members were arrested in February 2010 but most of whom were released from detention when government prosecutors withdrew charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against them.
The source said most of those released continued their armed struggle. One of them, Ramon dela Cruz, ended up being killed by government troops in a clash last August 9 in Doña Remedios Trinidad in Bulacan. Two other rebels died in the fighting.
http://malaya.com.ph/index.php/news/nation/39816-suspected-npa-freed-on-disputed-id
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