Negros NPAs disown PTCs, but warn bets vs bodyguards

BACOLOD CITY—Communist guerrillas have disowned the so-called permit to campaign (PTC) fees, but warned candidates that they would be considered “legitimate targets” if they moved around rebel areas with government agents as bodyguards.

In a statement sent to media outlets on Monday, the Apolinario “Boy” Gatmaitan Command of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Negros Occidental said fake guerrillas are the ones collecting PTC fees.

The guerrilla command said it considers the collection of PTC fees as extortion.

The command, however, said candidates should not be accompanied by bodyguards from the police, military, the breakaway rebel group Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade, government militias or armed village watchmen in their campaign in rebel areas.

Candidates with these bodyguards risk rebel attacks, the command said. It said cases of collection of PTC fees should be reported to the NPA so those behind these could be punished.

The NPA issued the statement on PTC fees and candidates’ bodyguards as communist assassins gunned down a policeman and a police asset in front of a public market in Escalante City.

Police Officer 1 Bejien Tanguan and police asset Joseph Lutrago were on board a motorcycle past 6 p.m. when fired upon by a group of guerrillas in front of the public market in Barangay Balintawak, Escalante.

Tanguan and Lutrago had just gone to a gasoline station to fill their motorcycle with gas, said Senior Superintendent Celestino Guara, Negros Occidental police chief.

Tanguan was able to fire back, hitting one of the gunmen who was taken by his comrades on board a tricycle to a still unknown location, said Guara.

Lutrago is a supporter of Escalante mayoral candidate Santiago Barcelona and Gov. Alfredo Marañon of the United Negros Alliance.

Barcelona is challenging the reelection bid of Escalante Mayor Melecio Yap, who was stripped of his supervisory power over the local police by the National Police Commission in 2011, amid allegations that he was sympathetic to the NPA. The mayor denied the allegations.