LUCENA CITY – An alleged ranking leader of the New People’s Army in Bicol region was captured by joint police and military operatives in Trece Martirez City in Cavite province on Wednesday morning.
Major Angelo Guzman, spokesman of the Armed Forces Southern Luzon Command based in Camp Nakar here, identified the suspect as Andres Hubilla, allegedly also known in the communist rebel movement as “Ka Magno.”
No other personal information about Hubilla was mentioned in the report.
Hubilla was arrested at around 9 a.m. in Barangay Hugo Perez, Trece Martirez City by joint elements from the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines, the report said.
The suspect is facing murder and attempted murder charges in the Regional Trial Court of Sorsogon, it added.
Guzman tagged Hubilla as an alleged member of the Bicol regional party committee (BRPC) of the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA and was the former secretary of the rebels’ Sorsogon provincial committee.
The captured rebel leader yielded a hand grenade, mobile phone units and assorted documents, which Guzman described in the report as “with high intelligence value.”
Hubilla is now detained at the Trece Martinez City police station, according to Guzman.
Guzman quoted Colonel Cesar Dio, commander of the Army’s 903rd Infantry Brigade operating in Bicol, as saying that the NPA leadership in Bicol would be “paralyzed” as a result of the capture of Hubilla.
“In effect, a more peaceful, progressive and prosperous region will soon emerge,” Dio said.
Sorsogon and Masbate provinces in the Bicol region were listed by the military as “priority areas” in their counter-insurgency operations.
Last month, three suspected NPA were killed while two soldiers were wounded in an encounter in Juban town in Sorsogon.
The NPA rebels have been waging a Maoist-inspired war against the government for the past 45 years, considered one of the world’s longest-running communist rebellion. CDG
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