AFP presents former insurgents who claim to have personal knowledge about NPA purging

By Ronron
February 26, 2007

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) presented to the media on Monday six former members of the New People’s Army (NPA) from Quezon province who claim to have personal knowledge about internal killings committed by the movement.

The presentation was made in defense to findings by the Melo Commission and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, blaming the military for the spate of extrajudicial killings in the country since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo rose to power in 2001.

Three of the former rebels claim to be members of the Kangaroo Court at the barangay level; one was a former vice squad leader of the NPA who participated in one liquidation activity; another one is a former political officer; and the last one is a former amazon whose father was a liquidation target.

“Grace,” the ex-amazon, said his father, Romulo de Villa, 56, was abducted and killed in March 2005 in Mulanay, Quezon by suspected NPA rebels on suspicion that he was providing the military with information about the movement after she surrendered in 2002.

The incident was confirmed by Medwin Hiwatig, alias Bernie, the former NPA vice squad leader, who claimed to be a part of the group that liquidated de Villa. The latter’s cadaver would later be discovered and exhumed at a site in Sitio Marasigan, Barangay Bagupaye, Mulanay on November 24, 2006.

The three former Kangaroo Court members, for their part, said that their role was to provide information to the Central Committee of the movement as to who should be liquidated.

The execution would then be carried out by the armed group from the Front Committee level in the districts and province controlled by the NPA, said “Dennis,” the self-proclaimed ex-political officer of the movement in San Narciso, Quezon.

While he admitted that one of the strategies of liquidation is to kill the targets while the gunmen are aboard a motorcycle, “Dennis,” who is now a private first class of the Philippine Army after surrendering in 2002, denied having knowledge about members of the Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anakpawis and other Left-leaning party-list organizations as targets.

“The existence of NPA Kangaroo Courts in the Bondoc Peninsula (in Quezon) is one of the obvious reasons that substantiate the AFP claims that the CPP-NPA themselves are mainly responsible in the extrajudicial killings not only of Leftist and militant personalities, but also of persons who are perceived to be counter-revolutionaries needed to be eliminated,” said Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, AFP Public Information Officer.

“Grace” said she came out to appeal to the NPA to stop its purging, like what it did to his father, and for its members to go back to the folds of the government.

“Give up now. You have nothing to gain from the NPA. They will never succeed. Being a part of the revolutionary movement is not the solution to your problems,” said “Grace.”/DMS