PAGADIAN CITY – Security forces have captured two senior leaders of the communist New People’s Army rebel group in Pagadian City in the southern Filipino province of Zamboanga del Sur, officials announced on Monday.
Officials said the duo – Leonardo Jacotin and Rosario Tabanao – were captured on November 18 in their hideout following a tipoff from informants. Policemen, backed by army soldiers, swooped down in the village of Balangasan and arrested them.
Troops also recovered a fragmentation grenade, a .45-caliber pistol and a magazine loaded with 8 bullets, 50 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 10 assorted identification cards and 17 cell phones.
Brigadier General Jacinto Bareng, commander of the 102nd Infantry Brigade, said the duo has warrants of arrest and are facing multiple criminal charges, including murder. He said Jacotin is the NPA’s logistic officer for western Mindanao, and Tabanao in the group’s finance officer.
“The NPA top leaders are responsible for robbery, large-scale extortion activities, proliferation of illegal firearms and explosives, and murder cases in the area,” he said.
The NPA has been fighting for many decades now in an effort to overthrow the democratic government and install its own communist state in the country. President Rodrigo Duterte, who previously supported the rebel group, has threatened to blacklist the NPA and its allied political groups and among them is the leftist organization called Bayan, for the string of deadly attacks on civilians and government targets across the Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)
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