AFP exec to NPA rebels: We are closing in on you

LUCENA CITY –– The top official of the military’s Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) declared that with the arrest of the New People’s Army (NPA) spokesman in Southern Tagalog, the rebels could not escape from the long arm of the law.

Lt. General Gilbert Gapay, Solcom commander, said the capture of Jaime Padilla alias “Ka Diego,” “only shows that the enemies of the state cannot and will never be able to evade the long arm of the law and that sooner than later, justice will be served for all the terroristic actions that they have been committing against our country and people.”

Gapay reiterated his call to the remaining NPA rebels to surrender and avail themselves of reintegration grants “because government forces are slowly but surely closing in to take them down.”

The Solcom commander issued his call in a statement released by Capt. Jayrald Ternio, spokesperson of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division (ID).

Government forces arrested Padilla on Monday evening at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City, where the NPA leader was supposedly confined due to hypertension./lzb