THE militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) yesterday asked the Armed Forces to return the P1.5 million that it said the military seized from communist leaders Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria during their arrest in Cebu last month.
Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said Tiamzon, chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and Austria, CPP secretary general, told him that money was for victims of super typhoon “Yolanda.”
He said Tiamzon and Austria relayed the same message in handwritten letter sent to a Bayan forum last April 5 in Quezon City.
The military called it “propaganda.”
“They are trying to divert the issue from the crimes committed by the couple,” said Maj. Gen. Eduardo Año, chief of the Intelligence Service of the AFP (ISAFP).
The ISAFP and operatives of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group served the arrest warrants on Tiamzon and Austria for multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder last March 22.
He dared Bayan to file a case against the arresting team in court. He said the arrest was properly documented by the CIDG.
“Ang dapat i-emphasize dito, nahuli yung mag-asawa dahil sa maraming krimeng ginawa nila. Yun ang main issue dito,” said Año.
“Kahit sinkong duling hindi kukuha yung PNP at AFP dun...Hindi kukunin ng AFP saka PNP yung pera para masira yung pagkakuha ng mag-asawa na yan...Napakalaking effort ito na ginawa ng Armed Forces at saka pulis,” he said.
An earlier military statement did not mention any cash recovered from the couple during their arrest. The statement said the “major items” seized from the couple were four handguns, magazines and ammunition, two hand grenades, two vans, four laptop computers, 16 cellphones, and 20 flash drives.
Reyes said according to the letter from Tiamzon and Austria, the money is with the military’s Central Command.
Reyes said the issue on the confiscated money was already raised by the couple’s lawyers “at the first instance after their arrest” by the military, but to no avail.
Tiamzon and Austria are detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame.
They refused to enter any plea during their arraignment at a Quezon City court last Tuesday for charges of kidnapping with serious illegal detention. They are accused of abducting four military officers and a narcotics command agent at a checkpoint in 1988.
The murder charges were in relation to their alleged involvement in the killing of civilians in Inopacan, Leyte, whose bodies were discovered in a mass grave in 2006.
http://www.malaya.com.ph/business-news/news/reds%E2%80%99-tale-p1m-taken-during-arrest-called-concoction
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