NPA admits liquidating ex-comrade in Bulacan

CALUMPIT, Bulacan — The New People’s Army (NPA) has owned up to the killing of a former member here last Jan. 24 for his alleged role in a liquidation squad it claimed was led by a Cagayan politician and for other alleged criminal activities like highway robberies.

Earlier, the NPA also claimed responsibility for the killing of its former chief Romulo Kintanar in a Quezon City restaurant last Thursday.

In a statement, the NPA said its hit men meted the "death penalty" on Luis Reyes, alias Ka Allan and Ka Kulit, who it clarified was not a top rebel leader in Central Luzon as reported, but just a "former simple NPA member in Bulacan in the mid-1980s."

Since Reyes left the underground movement, the NPA claimed that he "never really lived the life of a simple civilian."

"For quite sometime, he virtually sabotaged the reputation of the NPA zone guerrillas by using the name of the revolutionary movement to extort from the masses and the business sector in Calumpit," the NPA alleged.

Earlier, officials of the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) said the NPA has been enforcing "Operation Missing Link" or the liquidation of suspected military spies in its ranks.