Alleged ex-NPA member face raps linked to 30-year-old ‘mass purging’ inside rebel group

TACLOBAN CITY –– An alleged former member of the New People’s Army (NPA) is facing trial in connection to the “mass purging” initiated by the rebel group more than 30 years ago.

Authorities arrested Muco Lubong, 57, in Barangay Campacion, Arteche town, Eastern Samar at 10 p.m. on Sept.12.

Judge Thelma Bunyi Medina of the Regional Trial Court Branch 32 in the National Capital Region issued at least 15 arrest warrants against him for murder.

No bail

Lubong was allegedly involved in the slaying of hundreds of people suspected by the rebels to be government assets or informants in Leyte in the 1980s.

In a report, Colonel Carlito Abriz, police provincial director of Eastern Samar, said Lubong worked as a farmer in Arteche town.

On August 28, 2006, 67 skeletal remains were exhumed from shallow graves in Mt. Sapang Daku in Barangay Caulisihan, Inopacan, also Leyte, where the victims of the mass purging were buried.

Lubong, now detained at the provincial jail, will be presented to the court which issued the arrest warrants.