NPA leader in soldier’s abduction arrested in South Cotabato

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

KORONADAL CITY – Police in South Cotabato on Friday said they arrested a suspected New Peoples Army (NPA) sub-leader believed to be behind the 2015 abduction of a soldier.

Chief Inspector Ramil Villagracia, T’boli town police chief, said Rey Blasé, of the NPA Guerilla Front 73 under the Far South Mindanao Region Command, was arrested Wednesday in a hinterland area of the town on charges of abduction, kidnapping and arson.

Villagracia said they received a tip from concerned citizens that Blase had been hiding in Sitio Tabudbod in Barangay New Dumangas, T’boli, an upland town and one of the NPA infiltrated areas in South Cotabato.

He said an operation was immediately conducted, which led to Blase’s arrest.

The 44-year-old NPA leader did not resist arrest but denied the charges against him, Villagracia said.

“He was one of the suspects in the kidnapping of (Private First Class) Ken Subere,” Villagracia said of the suspect,  now detained at the T’boli police station. He was unarmed when arrested.

Subere was seized on April 2015 in Barangay Kematu, T’boli, South Cotabato, and was later released by the communist rebels to then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in Sarangani. /cbb