The headquarters of the Philippine Army’s (PA) 903rd
Infantry Brigade based here on Monday announced the capture of another top
commander of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Bicol.
Col. Cesar Idio, the brigade commander, identified the
recently captured rebel leader as Jesus Guelas alias Ka Insoy who served as
head of the provincial unit of the NPA in Sorsogon and a prominent member of
the Bicol Regional Party Committee (BRPC) of the Communist Party of the
Philippines (CPP).
He was arrested by joint elements of the Philippine National
Police (PNP) and PA during a raid on his safe house in Barangay Guinablan
Occidental, Matnog, Sorsogon last March 27, Idio said.
The lawmen were armed with various warrants of arrest for
murder and rebellion charges in arresting Guelas, the Army official said.
A .45-caliber pistol and an improvised explosive devise
weighing around five kilograms were recovered from the suspect during the raid,
the military commander added.
Guelas was the second high-ranking Bicol NPA leader arrested
by government operatives in three months.
His arrest, according to Idio, was preceded by the discovery
of an abandoned NPA training camp in inside a cave in Ticao Island of Masbate
province.
PA troopers who discovered the rebel camp in Barangay Danao,
San Jacinto, Masbate, last March 20 found a motorcycle and several other rebel
paraphernalia inside it, he said.
First to fall before Guelas was Reynaldo Hugo, said to be
the commanding officer of the regional operational command of the NPA in the
region, who was nabbed by a joint-police and military operatives last Jan. 27.
The arrest of Hugo, who is also listed by the military as an
executive member of the BRPC, came when operatives of the 9th Infantry Division
(ID) of the PA based in Pili, Camarines Sur and the Bicol regional police
intelligence division, armed with warrants of arrest, swooped into his hiding
place in Barangay Gulod, Cabuyao, Laguna.
Hugo -- who used several aliases such as Cielo, Yulo,
Bermas, Pitoy and Alex -- did not resist arrest when served the warrants for
multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder, according to 9th ID commander
Maj. Gen. Yerson Desapayo in an earlier statement.
The alleged NPA regional commander was identified as among
the perpetrators in the 2011 killing of PA’s Private First Class (Pfc.) Larry
Magalong in Labo, Camarines Norte.
Hugo’s group is also suspect in the 2012 ambush of a PA
Bayanihan Team in Barangay Maot of the same municipality which resulted in the
death of military personnel identified as Cpl. Amado Perillo Jr, Pfc. Paulo
Orticio and Pfc. Teodoro Ojeda Jr.
That incident also resulted in the death of Francisco Ruales
and the wounding of Marlon Matibag, both civilians and residents of the same
barangay, who were hit by stray bullets, Desapayo said.
In the statement, the military commander said he has lauded
the PA and PNP personnel involved in the arrest of these two NPA top leaders as
the undertaking could give justice to the victims of atrocities perpetrated by
the NPA under them.
Both Guelas and Hugo are now in jail here and in Camarines
Norte, respectively, and awaiting trial by the court for the criminal offenses
they are accused of, according to the military.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=748979
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