NPA rebels admit killing of Camarines gold miner

NAGA CITY—Communist rebels on Tuesday owned up to the killing of a gold miner identified by a police official as the tipster in the case of 13 persons massacred in Atimonan, Quezon province, in 2013.

In an online statement, Armando Catapia Command of the New People’s Army (NPA) accused the victim, Ronnie Habitan, 37, of murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking and depriving small-scale miners of their livelihood in Jose Panganiban, Camarines Norte province.

A police report said some 10 armed men wearing Army uniforms swooped down on Habitan’s house in Barangay (village) Plaridel, Jose Panganiban, around 9:10 a.m. on Monday and shot him in the head.

Four responding policemen led by the municipal police chief were intercepted by the gunmen on their way to the house before Habitan was shot, the report added.

Carlito Cada, the NPA Command’s public information officer, said the rebels took two .45 cal. pistols from Habitan’s house and a Glock pistol and another .45 cal. pistol from the policemen.

Cada described Habitan as “untouchable” because of his influence on the military and police in his mining activities and his use of armed goons to terrorize his competitors.

He alleged that the miner also controlled the illegal drug trade in Jose Panganiban, Labo and Paracale towns.

Senior Supt. Harris Fama, Camarines Norte police chief, said he would look into the rebels’ charges that certain police personnel were protecting Habitan. He, however, said the accusation “does not justify Habitan’s killing.”

After the massacre in Atimonan on Jan. 6, 2013, Habitan said in an interview that Vic Siman visited his house in Jose Panganiban and sought his approval in organizational changes in his security agency hours before the alleged “jueteng” (illegal numbers game) lord was killed.

Habitan was named by Supt. Hansel Marantan, police team leader who put up checkpoints in Atimonan, as the one who had tipped him off about Siman’s visit. But Habitan denied he talked to Marantan and instead accused him of extorting a million pesos from him when they were flagged down by his men two years before the massacre.