NPA owns up to slay of Adalem, aide

The highest governing body of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has finally admitted that its guerrillas in Tarlac City were responsible for the killing last April of a discharged Army officer and his driver-aide.

In other developments:

* The military and police presented to the Central Luzon media yesterday three ranking leaders of the New People's Army (NPA) in the region who were captured in Samal, Bataan last Friday.

* Authorities in Tarlac City described as "most disturbing" the rebels' setting up of a guerrilla front believed to have jurisdiction over the 6,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita owned by the Cojuangcos.

In the recent issue of Ang Bayan, the official newspaper of the CPP Central Committee, the mainstream underground movement said former Army Maj. Leodegario Adalem was "punished" by NPA hit men belonging to the Josepino Corpuz Command.

The rebel command has jurisdiction over Central Luzon and some provinces in Northern Luzon.

At least seven gunmen killed Adalem and his aide, Tomas Pangilinan, said to be an "asset" of the National Bureau of Investigation, in front of the National Irrigation Administration's provincial office in Barangay Maliwalo, Tarlac City at about 11 a.m. last April 11.

Witnesses said the gunmen identified themselves as NPA rebels before they peppered Adalem and Pangilinan with caliber .45 bullets.

Pangilinan, who was described in Ang Bayan as Adalem's "partner in crime," died before reaching the hospital from multiple gunshot wounds.

The CPP said Adalem was meted with "revolutionary justice" for the murder on April 24, 1980 of Macli-ing Dulag, an Ifugao tribal leader who then led the protest movement against the projects of Cellophil Resources Inc. and the 1,000-megawatt Chico River Dam project of the National Power Corp. in the Cordilleras.

The underground newspaper further said that "Adalem also led a syndicate involved in illegal gambling, drug trafficking and gunrunning in Central Luzon."

In connection with the killing, the Tarlac City police have filed murder charges against Nelson Mesina, a native of Concepcion, Tarlac who allegedly uses the aliases Ka Dondie and Ka Gideon. Mesina is suspected to be the NPA commander in Tarlac.

Police claimed that intelligence file pictures of Mesina, along with one Ferdinand Dayrit of Tarlac City, matched sketches drawn from the description of witnesses who saw Adalem's killers.

The CPP also admitted in Ang Bayan that NPA rebels operating in Tarlac were responsible for the burning of the Bondoc Poultry Farm in Barangay Sta. Ines, Sta. Ignacia town.

The rebels have accused the poultry farm's owner, businessman Cecilio Bondoc, of having "tipped off the military on the NPA's movements in 1997."

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Arturo Carillo, commander of the military's Northern Luzon Command, identified the three captured NPA leaders as Teofilo Salazar alias Ka Dino and Ka Al, Linda Roman-Quizon alias Ka Edel, and Eduardo Antonio alias Ka Desto.

Senior Superintendent Perfecto Palad, Bataan police director, said Salazar is the commanding officer of the CPP-NPA's Lino Blas Command in Bataan and Zambales and head of the military and education department of the CPP-NPA's regional committee.

He said Salazar has a standing arrest warrant from the Bataan court for a kidnapping and illegal detention case in 1990.

Palad said Roman-Quizon is the secretary of both the Lino Blas and Josepino Corpuz commands.

Charges of illegal possession of firearms were filed against her after a .380 Colt pistol, 50 bullets and a rifle magazine were seized from her when she was arrested.

Antonio, the alleged assistant secretary of the Lino Blas Command, was arrested also for illegal possession of firearms.

An NPA source claimed that the rival communist group, the Rebolusyonaryong Hukbo ng Bayan (RHB), apparently helped authorities in tracking down the three NPA leaders in Bataan.

A human rights group, Karapatan-Central Luzon, has criticized the arrest and claimed that no firearms nor subversive documents were found in their possession.

In Tarlac City, intelligence reports disclosed that the so-called "Sugarland Front" covers besides Hacienda Luisita the city's bordering villages and the towns of Victoria, La Paz and Concepcion.

Police and military authorities suspect that there are at least three NPA guerrilla fronts in the entire province.

The information was culled from subversive documents recovered in previous encounters with communist rebels.

The intelligence reports said the NPA has "infiltrated" at least two villages in Tarlac City - Balete inside Hacienda Luisita and San Carlos.

Four other barangays -- Armenia, Burot, Care and Trinidad -- were categorized as "threatened." Other villages considered "rebel-influenced" in varying degrees are Culipat, Bora, Calingcuan, Maliwalo and Matatalaib. - With Ding Cervante