Wife appeals to NPA to free husband-cop

From the Philippine News Agency (Aug 25): Wife appeals to NPA to free husband-cop

Life is getting harder for a housewife whose police husband was abducted by communist rebels in North Cotabato two weeks ago.

Jessa Catalan, wife of Police Officer 1 Bristol Catalan, an intelligence officer of Makilala Municipal Police office in Makilala, North Cotabato, appealed to New Peoples Army (NPA) to free her husband as soon as possible and without any condition.

Two weeks after the rebels seized her husband, Jessa said she has not heard anything from her husband or from his abductors.

The pain of waiting for any good news is excruciating for a wife and her children whose only source of income is her husband’s salary as government law enforcer, she added.

Jessa said since PO1 Catalan was kidnapped, her two children had stopped schooling.

PO1 Catalan was sending his two children to school in Barangay Katipunan on board a motorbike when three men forced him to board another motorbike, leaving his children unharmed.

The children are traumatized seeing their father taken at gunpoint by armed men, Jessa said.

Catalan was abducted by NPAs a week after the North Cotabato police office and Provincial Public Safety Battalion arrested a suspected NPA leader and seized from him three high-powered guns, explosives and subversive documents.

Makilala Mayor Rudy Caoagdan has aired an appeal to the NPA to free Catalan, the second police officer abducted by NPAs in North Cotabato since 2015.

According to Caoagdan, Catalan has no known enemies and is a good law enforcer not involved in any illegal act.

Senior Supt. Emmanuel Peralta, North Cotabato police director, said efforts continue for the safe recovery of PO1 Catalan.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1007544