Anti-communist Agusan mayor, son murdered after abduction

Loreto Mayor Dario Otaza speaks at the Serbisyo Caravan event held in his town on May 29, 2015, when 154 members of the New Peoples’ Army were presented after leaving the rebel group. Beside Otaza are the guns of the former rebels. NIKKO DIZON / PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

Loreto, Agusan del Sur, Mayor Dario Otaza and his 27-year-old son, Daryl, were found dead early Tuesday morning, hogtied and their bodies riddled with bullets, a Malacanang official told the Inquirer.

The Otazas were found in Purok (sub-village) 2, Barangay (village) Bitan-agan, Butuan City at about 6:50 a.m. by soldiers from the Army’s 23rd Infantry Battalion, Undersecretary Emmanuel Bautista of the Cabinet Cluster on Security, Justice, and Peace said in a text message.

Father and son were abducted early Monday night from their home in Butuan City by armed men suspected to be communist rebels.

The mayor, a former New People’s Army (NPA) rebel himself, returned to government fold in 1986, shortly after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship and entered politics shortly after.

Bautista said Otaza had devoted his work to helping his fellow Manobos.

Bautista, a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said Otaza was instrumental in the surrender of 154 NPA rebels last May.

Otaza was also actively involved in the national government’s Serbisyo Caravan (Service Caravan) that brings to the indigenous peoples basic government services.

Former NPA rebel

Otaza surfaced from the underground movement in 1986 after Corazon “Cory” Aquino was installed president.

In May 2013, he was elected mayor of Loreto, succeeding Romeo Magadan Sr.

In 2013, the NPA held him accountable for “torture, intimidation and reign of terror” in Manobo communities in the town as he actively supported the military’s anti-communist campaign. He was even accused of putting up a Bagani force to fight the NPA rebels in the town, who were mostly Manobos like himself.

In his August 23, 2013 statement, Aris Francisco of the NPA has warned that they will carry out “more punitive actions” against such “reactionary forces” like Otaza.

“While the peasant masses and national minorities struggle to defend their ancestral domain, Red fighters are determined to raise its capability to launch more and bigger tactical offensives against the enemies of the people,” Francisco said then.

He also said Otaza’s participation in the military’s anti-communist campaign made the mayor an “enemy of the people.”

“”The military and Mayor Otaza are intent in dismantling people’s organizations and structures that protect and serve the interest of the masses,” Francisco said.

He also said Otaza’s anti-communist campaign “merely foment people’s resistance and revolutionary tide.” With reports from Franklin Caliguid, Frinston Lim and Karlos Manlupig/CB

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