Three dead in Cordillera paramilitary group rivalry

BAGUIO CITY — Fights between rival factions of the paramilitary group Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) has turned bloody on Tuesday when ten heavily armed men, identified with the Balweg faction, murdered three men belonging to the Molina faction in Manabo town in Abra province.

The gunmen immediately owned the killings over a local radio station in Bangued town in Abra two days later as members of the 2000-strong CPLA Molina faction had reportedly turned restive and were observed to be gearing up for revenge.

Bucloc town Mayor Mailed Molina, the faction chief of slain men Rommel Martinez, alias Rabas, Hector Rosales, alias Ka Marlon, and Hermi Tubban, however, doused fears of reprisals from his group as he vowed the killing would be better resolved through the indigenous "bodong" system or through the government’s mainstream justice system.

The victims were reportedly on board a passenger jeepney traversing Sitio Lamag, Ramon East in Manabo when the Balweg gunmen flagged their vehicle, ordered them to alight and peppered them with bullets.

Molina claimed that although most CPLA men wanted justice for their dead members, "a problem will not solve another problem." Instead, he is appealing to the leaders of the Balweg faction to cause the surrender of the perpetrators to "let the situation calm down."

Molina also brushed aside any involvement of the New Peoples Army (NPA) in the massacre.

Factional strife between CPLA leaders started in 1994 when Molina and some leaders of the group severed ties with priest-turned-rebel Conrado Balweg and his followers over the ratification of the 1990 Cordillera Organic Act.