PNP chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said arrests will be made "within the next few days," but he refused to give any names.
Speaking at the PNP’s 12th anniversary celebration at Camp Crame in Quezon City, Mrs. Arroyo said high-profile crimes like Kintanar’s murder have "affected" peace and order in the country.
"We already have the identity of the culprits," she said. "Let us bring them to the bar of justice."
Mrs. Arroyo said the police must focus on high-profile crimes as these "tend to disturb the psychological perimeters of the community" nationwide.
"The latest (of these crimes) being the killing of former NPA leader Rolly Kintanar," she said.
The NPA will find it more difficult to carry out their plots to kill prominent personalities if law enforcement agencies can rid their ranks of rascals, Mrs. Arroyo added.
Chief Superintendent Robert Delfin, PNP intelligence director, said his men have tagged Tirso Alcantara alias Ka Bert as "a major operator" in Kintanar’s murder, along with other "high-profile" members of the NPA’s National Partisan Command–Leo Velasco, Philip Limjuco and Bartolome Melchor.
"He may be one of the planners (of Kintanar’s slay)," he said. "We thought it was an annual plenum but it turned out it was a meeting of the group to finalize Kintanar’s liquidation."
Delfin said Bartolome may be named as an accused in Kintanar’s murder after police investigators have completed gathering evidence and taking the statements of witnesses.
"We stick to the group of Limjuco and Melchor (as behind the killing)," he said.
"Although we have latest intelligence information that Bert Alcantara supervised the operations. Limjuco and Melchor are the ones on the ground."
Alcantara is next in line to Velasco in the hierarchy of the National Partisan Command, the NPA’s special operations group, which carries out the "liquidation orders" of exiled communist leader Jose Ma. Sison, he added.
Delfin said Alcantara, who heads the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), has under his command about 1,500 to 2,000 rebels, out of the total 8,000 estimated number of rebels nationwide.
Delfin said Kintanar may have been killed by young NPA recruits from Bulacan who were sent on a test mission under the watchful eye of senior cadres. — Christina Mendez, Ding Cervantes, Benjie Villa