Alleged private armed group leader killed in Ecija

CABANATUAN CITY , Philippines  – The suspected leader of a private armed group operating in Nueva Ecija was killed in an ambush by a group of unidentified armed men in Bongabon town, the Philippine National Police reported here the other day.

Senior Superintendent Ricardo Marquez, PNP provincial director, identified the slain PAG leader as Virgilio Alejo, 47, suspected leader of the dreaded “Kamagong Group” involved in gangland-style killings.

Marquez said Alejo was accompanied by some friends near his house when four masked heavily armed men alighted from a Toyota Corolla car (PTB-736) and fired at him around 8:30 p.m. Monday.

Chief Inspector Arnel Santiago, Bongabon police chief, said that Alejo was able to run away to the edge of the Pampanga River in Barangay Vega when the gunmen gave chase and shot him several times with M-16 Armalite rifles. Five empty shells were recovered by the police at the crime scene.

The victim has outstanding warrants of arrest for murder and rebellion.

The “Kamagong Group” was identified in January by the PNP as one of three PAGs it was seeking to dismantle as it was reportedly out to sow terrorism and chaos in the elections. Another PAG was “Alakdan.”

These private armed groups who are engaged in armed robbery and hired guns activities, are operating in the first and second congressional districts and in the boundaries of the third and fourth congressional districts.

Marquez said that some of them lie low during normal times but surface during the election season reportedly at the behest of unscrupulous politicians. “When it is not election time, they don’t show themselves,” he said.

Marquez said they have strictly monitored the movements of these PAGs during the recent polls and found that they were no longer there during the entire campaign period.

Police have not yet established if the activities of the Kamagong Group is tied to the operations of two suspected hired guns who were arrested last week in Llanera town.

The two – Dennis Vilelia and Rafael Merez – were arrested after an aborted assassination attempt on a sales agent of a bottling company in Talavera, Nueva Ecija.