2 top CPP leaders fall; mistaken identities, say kin

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines—Police and military teams arrested two top officials of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on Wednesday in Mexico town in Pampanga, a spot report to the regional police in Camp Olivas, south of here, said.

Eugenia Magpantay and her husband, Agaton Topacio, were arrested in a house on Tinajero St. in Barangay (village) San Antonio at past 5 p.m. on the strength of a warrant for a murder case filed in 2005, the report said.

Their arrests came a few months after Wilma and Benito Tiamzon–tagged as CPP’s topmost ranking officials–were arrested in Cebu.

It said that Magpantay, who went by the aliases Reming and Milan, was a central committee member and former secretary of the Central Luzon Regional Committee (CLRC) of the CPP.

Topacio used to be a member of the CLRC and lately served as head of the national secretariat of the CPP.

According to the report, the members of the arresting teams came from the regional and Pampanga police, the Philippine Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion, 703rd Infantry Brigade and Intelligence Unit.

But residents in Mexico claimed that the police and the military arrested the wrong persons.

Their relatives identified them as Lourdes David Quioc and Reynaldo Canlas Ingal.

They have been held in Camp Olivas since Wednesday night.

Told of the supposed mistaken identities, a police official said they would be released only after validation. But it appeared that their identities had been verified as the two suspects were scheduled to be presented in a media briefing at 9 a.m. Thursday.