Rebs free Agusan mine owner

SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur—Communist rebels on Monday afternoon freed a small-scale gold mining operator after holding him for two days.

In a telephone interview, Ka Amihan, spokesperson for the New People’s Army (NPA) Front 14, said there was insufficient evidence to pin down Carson Ceasar Lademora on counterinsurgency charges, prompting rebels to release him without the aid of third party facilitators.

The rebels held Lademora and his aide Leonardo Cacao captive on Saturday after they raided Lademora’s mining tunnels in Rosario town, Agusan del Sur province.

NPA rebels released Lademora to Rosario Mayor Jose Cuyos Sr., his wife Vice Mayor Juvy Cuyos and Councilor Belarmino Balagot in an undisclosed area in neighboring Tagbina town in Surigao del Sur province on Monday.

“He is okay now and is back to work,” said Lademora’s wife, Eufemia.

Lademora operates small-scale tunnels in the high-grade gold rush area in Sinug-ang in the village of Bayugan 3, which his family has been claiming since the early 1980s.

Amihan denied that ransom money was involved in Lademora’s release.

She said the NPA took Lademora and investigated him due to atrocities committed by his father, former Philippine Constabulary Col. Carlos Lademora, leader of the dreaded “Lost Command,” to poor people living in the mining
areas.

“[But the younger Lademora] did not have that kind of record, so we did not consider him a POW (prisoner of war),” Amihan said. —CHRIS V. PANGANIBAN