DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 29, 2014) – The communist New People’s Army denied Thursday any involvement in the assassination of a town mayor in the southern Philippines following military accusations that it was behind the murder.
Mayor Reynaldo Navarro, of Laak town in Compostela Valley, was killed in an ambush by motorcycle gunmen on May 28 while travelling in the village of Sagayen in Asuncion town in Davao del Norte province.
Two of the ambushers were also killed by Navarro’s two police escorts who had been wounded in the exchanged of fire. The mayor’s driver and two of his police escorts – PO3 Glen Ochoco and PO1 Rey Leones, and driver Timitilito Pacano were wounded in the ambush, but two of the attackers had been killed in the exchanged of fire that also injured two civilians – Crispolo Patajo, Sr and Paquito Tonocante, according to Capt. Alberto Caber, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command, adding two automatic rifles were recovered from the slain gunmen.
The NPA accused Navarro along with two other active police officers and a retired policeman for their alleged involvement in illegal logging activities in Compostela Valley and Agusan del Sur and Davao del Norte.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the 10th Infantry Division was quick to blame the NPA for the killing.
Rigoberto Sanchez, a rebel spokesman, said the NPA was not involved in the ambush and condemned the killing of Navarro.
“In accusing the NPA of Navarro’s ambush, the 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command shows that it is poised to agitate and conscript Navarro’s Lumad supporters and followers to become its new lackeys and bandits under the Oplan Bayanihan counterrevolutionary campaign. The masses in Laak should see to this latest anti-people machination and must struggle against fascism,” Sanchez said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
“While Navarro was part of the Big 4 in Agusan-Comval-Davao del Norte forests, the NPA has not considered him an enemy that warrants a standing order or a recipient of a death sentence. Navarro’s track record did not make him a legitimate military target, thus, no revolutionary punishment was executed against him,” he said.
Sanchez said despite strong NPA warnings on Navarro to stop his illegal logging there are no grounds for them to kill the politician, saying, he had supported the rebel cause in the past.
“As a long-time politician whose area covers territories of the People’s Democratic Government in Compostela Valley, Navarro cooperated with comrades and in many ways have demonstrated actions that point to his recognition of the revolutionary cause. In the last few years, however, his business interest in logging and agribusiness expansion has increased. Comrades have repeatedly warned him of his increasing anti-people activities.”
“In the midst of these warnings, there are no strong grounds showing Navarro’s grave offenses against the revolutionary movement that would necessitate the People’s Democratic Government to hand down the maximum penalty of capital punishment,” Sanchez said.
Just this month, rebels captured a government soldier, Corporal Rogelio Rosales, of the 60thInfantry Battalion, for protecting illegal logging in Davao del Norte’s Kapalong town. He was eventually freed to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who negotiated with the NPA for the safe release of the soldier.
Rosales, who yielded illegal drugs during his capture, was eventually removed by military service after he admitted using drugs during a routine debriefing shortly after his release.
Last month, the NPA arrested Sergeant Jeric Bucio Curay, a member of the 72nd Infantry Battalion, at a rebel checkpoint in Laak town. He was released also to Duterte two weeks later.
The rebels, who are fighting for a separate state in the country, also threatened to attack mining companies in Mindanao, especially those engage in open-pit and destructive mining practices, and those that encroach in ancestral domain of indigenous communities in the southern region. (Mindanao Examiner)
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