Ranking NPA leader falls in QC

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 8, 2021): Ranking NPA leader falls in QC (By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan)

Photo courtesy of CIDG

Authorities arrested a ranking official of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) in Quezon City, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Gen. Debold Sinas said on Friday.

In a statement, Sinas said the suspect Allan Morales a.k.a. Joseph Erwin Rimando, Alvin Advincula, Budlat, and Dante Morales was arrested by members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), and the Joint Task Force-NCR along Sapphire St. in Barangay Payatas B around noon on Wednesday.

Sinas said the arrest of Morales is pursuant to the "intensified implementation of court processes against communist terrorist personalities wanted by the law for criminal cases”, is in support to Executive Order No. 70 creating the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

Morales has a standing arrest warrant for murder issued by the Tagbilaran City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 4.

Citing reports from CIDG director Maj. Gen. Joel Napoleon Coronel, Sinas said the operatives confiscated from the suspect eight barrel assemblies for an M4 assault rifle; one fragmentation hand grenade; one submachine gun with one magazine and 22 pieces of ammunition; and one .45-caliber pistol with one magazine assembly loaded with seven rounds of ammunition.

Based on a recent PNP periodic status report, Morales is the deputy secretary of the CPP-NPA-NDF's Negros-Cebu-Bohol-Siquijor (NCBS) Regional Committee and formerly the secretary of Regional Peasant Sugar Workers Bureau (RPSWB) of Negros.

He was also a former secretary of the communist movement's Regional Committee for Central Visayas and a former secretary of its National Youth Student Bureau.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.