NPA rebel’s house yields guns, grenade in N. Cotabato

From the Philippine News Agency (Aug 2, 2023): NPA rebel’s house yields guns, grenade in N. Cotabato (By Edwin Fernandez)

SEIZED FIREARMS. A police officer accounts for the war materiel seized by government forces during the serving of an arrest warrant against a wanted communist rebel in Magpet, North Cotabato Tuesday (Aug. 1, 2023). The subject of the warrant, Romeo Betil, eluded arrest. (Photo courtesy of PRO-12)

COTABATO CITY – Law enforcement authorities implementing an arrest warrant in Magpet, North Cotabato, missed a suspected NPA rebel but recovered guns and explosives from his home on Tuesday, an official said.

Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg, police director for the Soccsksargen (PRO-12), identified the target of the operation as Romeo Betil, a member of the New People’s Army (NPA) Guerrilla Front 53 operating in the province's second district.

Macaraeg said Betil has several standing arrest warrants issued by local courts in North Cotabato for various crimes, ranging from murder, frustrated murder, and collection of illegal revolutionary taxes.

Personnel of the police’s 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company and Magpet Municipal Police Station and troopers from the Army’s 72nd Infantry Battalion jointly conducted the operation against Betil at his residence in Barangay Don Panaca, Magpet on Tuesday.

“The suspect evaded arrest after sensing the approaching government team by quickly fleeing to an unknown direction,” Macaraeg said in a statement Wednesday.

The team confiscated several weapons and ammunition from the suspect's residence consisting of an improvised shotgun, a homemade break-barrel pistol, a rifle grenade launcher and a hand grenade.

Macaraeg said the recovered guns and explosive were presented to the court and subsequently submitted to Provincial Forensic Unit-12 in Kidapawan City for examination and proper disposition.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1206974