NPA guns down 2nd suspect in murder of rebel leader’s daughter

TAGUM CITY—A soldier implicated in the 2009 abduction, torture and murder of Rebelyn Pitao, daughter of rebel leader Leoncio Pitao, was shot dead by suspected communist assassins in a remote village in Davao City Thursday, the military said.

Cpl. Winnie Carampatana died from multiple gunshot wounds after being attacked by three New People’s Army guerrillas before his two children and a nephew in Poblacion Malabog village, Paquibato district, Davao City, past 6 a.m., according to Maj. Jacob Obligado, civil military operations chief of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division.

Obligado said the victim was off duty when he was attacked by guerrillas riding a motorcycle.

Carampatana was tagged as among the 13 soldiers behind the murder of 20-year-old Rebelyn, a teacher whose body was found in an irrigation canal in Carmen town in Davao del Norte on March 5, 2009.

In an inquiry called by the Commission on Human Rights in Davao City a month after Rebelyn’s killing, Carampatana had denied involvement. When asked by then CHR Chair and now Justice Secretary Leila de Lima about his knowledge of the young teacher’s death, Carampatana said he was restricted to camp the day Rebelyn’s body was found.

Carampatana was the second suspect to be killed by NPA rebels. In October 2009, Cpl. Orly Pedregosa was also gunned down by suspected communist assassins in Paquibato district. Frinston L. Lim, Inquirer Mindanao