15 mayors in Northern Mindanao in communist hit list

BUTUAN CITY — Not seven, but 15 incumbent municipal mayors in Northern Mindanao, including the Caraga region, are in the hit list of the New People’s Army (NPA).

An NPA spokesman, a certain Ka Derek, confirmed this in an interview with Bombo Radyo-Butuan the other night, hours after the killing of Oscar Torralba, a former mayor of La Paz, Agusan del Sur who was seeking a comeback in this year’s elections.

The NPA command in Northern Mindanao earlier said in a press statement that seven mayors in the Caraga region have been sentenced to death by its "people’s court" for alleged "crimes against the people."

Ka Derek, however, refused to identify the mayors in their hit list. He insisted that the killings of Torralba and Mayor Lope Asis of Bayugan town were not due to their non-payment of "revolutionary taxes."

"The Philippine Army is the one doing the extortion, not us," he said.

Torralba was gunned down at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday while campaigning in the hinterland village of Comota, some 15 kilometers northeast of the La Paz town proper.

An autopsy on Torralba’s body conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation showed he was shot thrice — in the back of the head and left and right chest — with an M-16 Armalite rifle.

The Agusan del Sur police and the military are looking into other angles in the Torralba slaying, including the possibility that it was politically motivated.

Torralba’s brother Rufino, the incumbent mayor of La Paz, was quoted as saying that their political opponents allegedly paid the NPA to kill his elder brother.

Torralba, who belonged to the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, was pitted against Dr. Renato Nuñez of the Lakas-NUCD.

Rufino said he would continue his slain brother’s fight, but added that he would respect the decision of LDP officials in the province, led by Gov. Valentina Plaza.

Last April 17, Asis, who also belonged to the LDP, was shot dead by communist hit men shortly before midnight in Barangay Cagbas, Bayugan town.

The NPA’s Fr. Frank Navarro Command later claimed responsibility for the Asis killing.

The group’s spokesman, Bagani Dagohoy Bonifacio, said in a statement that Asis was executed for allegedly protecting the illegal drug trade in Bayugan, a major drug haven in the Caraga region.