DAVAO CITY – A top communist rebel leader and his female medical aide were both killed in fierce clashes with government soldiers on Sunday in Davao City in southern Philippines, officials said.
Officials announced the news of killing of Leoncio Pitao, alias Ka Parago, before midnight after troops recovered his body in Paquibato District, a known stronghold of the New People’s Army.
First Lieutenant Vergel Lacambra, a spokesman for the 10th Infantry Division, said the body of Pitao’s aide, Kyle Hermosa, from Compostela Valley’s Mawab town, was also recovered by soldiers in the area following a 20-minute gunbattle in the village of Pañalum.
Pitao was the commander of the fierce Pulang Bagani Command blamed by the army for the spate of deadly attacks on military and police targets in Davao and nearby areas.
Lacambra said troops – from the army’s Task Force Minion formed several months ago to capture the rebel leader – tracked down Pitao’s group and engaged the gunmen in running gunbattle until he was eventually killed.
He said troops also recovered two M16 automatic rifles, three backpacks and several rounds of rifle grenades.
“Leoncio Pitao has several standing warrant of arrests for various crimes ranging from murder, multiple frustrated murder and robbery. He gained notoriety as an NPA Leader in Southern Mindanao since late 1980’s,” Lacambra said.
He said troops managed to track down Pitao following a series of clashes this month in Paquibato where several rebels had died.
Major General Eduardo Año, the army division commander, said the killing of Pitao is a big blow to the NPA.
“Leoncio Pitao had eluded arrest several times, but eventually the long arms of the law caught up with him. We hope that with his death, the communities especially in Paquibato District which he had terrorized for a very long time will now experience true and lasting peace.” Año said.
While the military branded Pitao as “notorious and ruthless,” many villagers looked at him as their modern-day Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to feed the poor.
Pitao in the past had urged government soldiers to resign from the military service and join the struggle against state tyranny.
“The NPA exhorts them to join the people’s struggle against imperialism, feudalism and state tyranny. As fascism and exploitation continues, the people and the revolutionary forces aspire to raise the level of armed resistance, wage agrarian revolution and strengthen themselves to advance the people’s war and defeat the enemy,” Pitao said when he was still living.
In March 2009, Pitao’s daughter Rebelyn, was abducted in Davao City and her naked body was found floating in a shallow creek in the village of San Isidro in Davao del Norte’s Carmen town.
Her body bore torture marks and was believed raped before she was stabbed in the chest and Pitao tagged 11 military agents as behind the murder.
There was no immediate statement from the NPA about Pitao’s death.
The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been fighting for decades for the establishment of a separate state in the country.
Government peace talks with the rebels have been on and off with both accusing each other reneging on many agreements, including demands by the communist group for Manila to release all political prisoners languishing in jails across the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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