MALACAÑANG on Tuesday revealed that the killers of Loreto Mayor Dario Otaza and his son pretended to be law enforcement officers in order to abduct the two victims.
Cabinet Cluster on Security, Justice and Peace head, Undersecretary Emmanuel Bautista, told Palace reporters that the abductors duped the mayor’s security team into thinking that they were members of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
“They had security but those who took him wore NBI uniforms and pretended to be NBI so medyo nag-relax yung security nya,” Bautista said during a televised Malacañang briefing.
Earlier reports said Otaza and his son, Daryl, were snatched by armed men from their home. Their bodies, which were hogtied and bore multiple gunshot wounds were found in Purok 2, Bgy. Bitan-agan, Butuan City. The local government has already convened a crisis committee on the incident.
NPA suspects
Bautista said that New People’s Army (NPA) rebels could be behind the crime.
Bautista claimed that based on reports of their field units, the methodology of the execution of the murder matched that of the communist insurgents. He also said that Otaza was among those facilitating the surrender of rebels and that could be a strong motive for the NPA to kill him.
“He has the credibility and he has a lot of followings also. And so that and many other issues [are] motivations enough for him to be a target of the New People’s Army,” the former AFP chief of staff said.
Otaza was a rebel returnee, who surfaced from the underground movement in 1986, and was among the partners of the national government in its “Serbisyo Caravan” or “Peace Caravan.” Bautista said the mayor was credited for the surrender of more than 250 rebels.
The NPA has yet to issue a statement on Otaza’s slay.
An earlier report said Otaza has been warned by the NPA for allegedly harassing lumad groups in the area. He was also accused of creating a so-called Bagani force to counter the NPA.
READ MORE: Anti-communist Agusan mayor, son murdered after abduction
But Bautista said it was the NPA that was harming the lumads or indigenous people’s groups.
This is amid reports of violence and killings in Surigao involving lumads. Some lumad groups accused the military of harassing them in line with their anti-communist campaign.
READ MORE: Lumad killings extrajudicial, says CHR| Development, aggression blamed for lumad killings in Mindanao
“Government is conducting the investigation and we are, in fact, waiting for the results. DOJ is investigating the case and we have faith in our own rule of law, in our own justice system,” Bautista said of the issue.
Bautista denied that the government is engaging in a propaganda war against the NPA.
Lumad issues
“It’s been very complicated right now. And what we want is for them to resolve all of these issues among themselves without interference from any outside forces,” he said, referring to the lumads that have sided with or against the NPA.
Bautista, however, admitted that the ancestral domain of the lumads in Mindanao are also “rich mining areas” and that has caused conflict in the area.
Bautista claimed that the NPA wanted to negotiate with mining companies, instead of the lumads, but some lumad groups also claimed that the violence was caused by mining and other business interests trying to get hold of the territory.
READ MORE: Development, aggression blamed for lumad killings in Mindanao