NDF negotiator, 68 others charged for kidnap-slay of soldiers

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines – Sixty-nine members of the New People’s Army (NPA) operating in Northern Luzon, including a member of the peace negotiating panel of the National Democratic Front (NDF), were charged with kidnapping and homicide for the killing of two Army soldiers and a militiaman last February, Cagayan police bared yesterday.

Respondent Randy Felix Malayao, NDF negotiator, described the development as mere “witch-hunting” and “red-baiting.”

Malayao said most of those charged were mass organizers, human rights advocates and party-list officers.

“Militant activists, human rights advocates and other civilians are always dragged into cases involving NPAs. They know we have nothing to do with such incidents. The charges are only meant to silence and immobilize us, hinder our advocacies. We demand that the trumped-up charges against us be immediately withdrawn,” Malayao told The STAR.

The charges filed against Malayao and his co-accused came after the police failed to indict three Aeta natives in Rizal town for the kidnapping and slaying of PFC Victor Palao, PFC Jayson Tagao and militia member Jason Santor, whose corpses were abandoned at a chapel in Barangay Zinundungan last July.

Instead, natives Mendo Visyotan, Marlon Baganay and Lando Duruin face trial for illegal possession of firearms.

In filing the new case against Malayao and the other respondents last Sept. 15, the Rizal police submitted the joint affidavit of cousins Edmund and Gerard Dalingay, who claimed to have witnessed the kidnapping of Palao, Tagao and Santor by some 20 armed men in Barangay San Juan, Pinukpuk, Kalinga on Feb. 25.

Among those named respondents with Malayao were rebel commanders involved in celebrated cases in Cagayan like David Soriano and Rolando Ibis, who were tagged in the 2014 slay of Gonzaga town Mayor Carlito Pentecostes; Cristina Garcia alias “Senyang,” who was indicted for the 2013 massacre of eight members of the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force in Allacapan; Lolito Rasa, who was named one of those responsible for the ambush of Rizal police chief Antonio Rueco and four of his men in 2011; and Raymund Guzman, who was among those charged in the slay of Lasam town political scion Victor Isaac Agatep in January.

Malayao is included in the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantee in the government’s peace negotiations with the NDF.

He was indicted for the 2001 assassination of Cagayan Gov. Rodolfo Aguinaldo, the 2006 slay of Ilagan, Isabela mayor Delfinito Albano and the ambush-slay of eight soldiers in San Mariano town, the last of 11 criminal cases against him dismissed by the court in 2013.