2 Reds behind solons’ slays killed

GENERAL TRIAS, Cavite — Two suspected ranking communist leaders tagged in last year’s assassinations of Reps. Marcial Punzalan and Rodolfo Agui—naldo and Tanauan, Batangas Mayor Cesar Platon, were killed in a shootout with police and military intelligence agents here before midnight Wednesday.

Chief Superintendent Enrique Galang, Southern Tagalog police director, identified the two slain New People’s Army leaders as Jose Marquez, alias Ka Morris and Jose Arquiza, head of the NPA liquidation squad in the region; and Ariel Hernandez, alias Ka Enteng, logistics officer of the NPA’s Cavite Provincial Committee.

Marquez was said to be the second man of Tirso Alcantara, head of the NPA’s Melito Glor Command which operates in Southern Tagalog.

Galang said the two had been under surveillance for two months since the regional police got intelligence reports that a group of NPA hit men were hunting down "target personalities" whom he refused to identify.

He said Marquez and Hernandez, on board a stainless owner-type jeep, were cruising Governor’s Drive in Barangay Manggahan here when they were spotted by elements of the Army’s 202nd Infantry Brigade led by Col. Efren Orbon, the military’s Intelligence Task Unit and the provincial and General Trias police.

They opened fire at the policemen and soldiers when they were stopped at a checkpoint. An Army captain, Ramon Borromeo, was wounded in the ensuing firefight. Doctors have declared him out of danger. — With Christina Mendez