THE arrest of top
communist leaders Benito and Wilma Tiamzon Saturday was the result of a
years-long manhunt by the military and the police. And then, a bit of luck.
“Natiyempuhan
lang,” said one of the agents who took part in the operation.
The Tiamzons were
aboard a Hyundai Starex Van and their companions riding on a Toyota Innova when
they were flagged down by a police-military checkpoint in Cebu, wher they had
stayed since October last year. They were supposed to go to Davao
The couple
and five others who were arrested with them were flown to Manila
on an Air Force Fokker plane and brought to the Criminal Investigation and
Detection Group in Camp
Crame
In a briefing
after the capture, Armed Forces chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista said the Tiamzons
had been on the run, evading authorities and hiding in isolated areas but also
staying in posh villages in Metro Manila.
Tiamzon mostly
stayed in the Bicol region at the height of the insurgency in the 1980s during
the incumbency of the late Felimon Lagman, then said to be the overall leader
of the New People’s Army.
A crackdown on
the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA hierarchy forced Tiamzon to seek
refuge in the Bicol region for some time, Bautista said.
In Bicol, Tiamzon
held a series of plenums, formulating ways to thwart the military offensive.
The NPA launched a series of attacks against military and police personnel in
Metro Manila an attempt to divert the military’s campaign in the countryside,
Bautista added.
Tiamzon was
responsible for forming the Alex Boncayao Brigade, the NPA hit squad that was
responsible for the series of assassinations of military and police officials
during the administration of President Corazon Aquino.
Branded as a
hardliner in the organization, Tiamzon held briefings in Bicol and Quezon
province, particularly in the Bondoc peninsula under the command of Gregorio
Rosal, also head of the Melito Glor or Banahaw Command.
When Rosal died
of a heart attack in 2011, Tiamzon disappeared until his surprise visit to his
ancestral home in Concepcion , Marikina ,
in early 1989 when his wife Wilma was arrested by authorities and jailed in Camp Crame
Tiamzon stayed
for a while in Metro Manila to plan the escape of Wilma on Dece. 25, 1989, the
military said.
Tiamzon, 63 was
born on March 20, 1951 and studied at the University of the Philippines
He was secretary
of the Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee that was responsible for the
massacre of civilians in 1985 in Inopacan, Leyte .
When CPP Chairman
Emeritus Jose Ma. Sison fled to the Neiterhlands, Tiamzon called the shots on
almost all major party activities.
His wife Wilma,
61 she was previously the CPP’s secretary of the National Peasant Commission;
executive committee member of the Regional Trade Union Bureau; finance officer
of the CPP; and member of the Samahang Demokratikong Kabataan.
She was captured
on Oct. 4, 1989 but after two months in detention in Camp Crame
http://manilastandardtoday.com/2014/03/24/tracking-the-tiamzons-years-of-hunt-bit-of-luck/
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