Bayan Muna decries arrest of party campaigner

MANILA, Philippines—Members of the militant party-list group Bayan Muna and of the  family of Reynante Gamara, an alleged official of the Communist Party, on Wednesday decried his arrest, saying he was not who the authorities say he is.

Operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Armed Forces of the Philippines arrested Gamara on Tuesday on the strength of a warrant for his arrest in connection with a murder case in Quezon province.

The authorities said Gamara, alias “Ka Mike,” was the secretary of the Metro Manila Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

But Gamara’s children and siblings, who visited him at the Camp Crame custodial center on Wednesday, said the authorities were barking up the wrong tree.

His daughter, Niki Gamara, 22,  a student at the University of the Philippines-Manila,  questioned the validity of the arrest warrant, saying her father had never been in that part of Quezon where he was supposed to have participated in the murder.

She said Gamara was a political campaigner for Bayan Muna, whose activities were limited to cities in southern Metro Manila. She added that their lawyers would ask the court to nullify the warrant on these and other grounds.

Also arrested for preventing the authorities from serving the warrant of arrest on Gamara was his companion, Santiago Baleta.

In a statement, the CIDG-National Capital Region chief Senior Supt. Joel Coronel said Gamara was one of the accused in the killing of Army Pfc Eriberto Eclavea and Richard Cortizano, alias Ka Troy, a rebel returnee, on May 27, 2007 at Sitio Bulihan, Barangay Munting Ilog, Cagsiag, Mauban, Quezon.

Gamara’s co-accused in the killings are Rosemarie Domanais and Tirso Alcantara, alias Ka Bart, the regional operations commander of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee of the CPP’s armed wing, the New People’s Army. Alcantara was arrested on Jan. 5, 2011 in Quezon.

Gamara, according to Coronel, was the one who replaced former Metro Manila Regional Party Committee secretary Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman, who was killed on the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City in 2001.