Ex-NPA leader linked to Vizcaya slays falls

SOLANO, Nueva Vizcaya — A former ranking leader of the New People’s Army (NPA), whom authorities have linked to the killings of a former Nueva Vizcaya governor and a town mayor, was arrested the other day for frustrated murder and illegal gun possession.

Chief Inspector James Afalla, this town’s police chief, said Rolando Sibayan, 37, was nabbed for shooting and wounding a tricycle driver who had reportedly refused him a ride.

The tricycle driver, a certain Armando Estrada, is said to be in unstable condition due to a gunshot wound in the neck. Sibayan was reportedly drunk when the incident occurred, Afalla said.

Police said Sibayan used the alias "Kumander Estan" when he was the secretary of the NPA’s Nueva Vizcaya-Quirino-San Agustin (Isabela) Front Committee.

Police said Sibayan also used to head the NPA’s liquidation unit here which was allegedly responsible for the abduction, torture and murder of former governor Osias Cadiente and Villaverde mayor Romualdo Bediones in the 1980s.

Afalla said witnesses quoted Sibayan as bragging that he was an aide of lawyer Virgil Castro, when he shot the tricycle driver at about 1 a.m. last Thursday.

According to Afalla, Castro, a former provincial chapter president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, personally went to the police station several hours after the incident and allegedly asked that Sibayan be released from detention supposedly to undergo a medical examination.

Afalla, however, said he turned down Castro’s request. Castro, who survived an ambush last year, was not available for comment.