BY VICTOR REYES and RAYMOND AFRICA
A LEADER of the New People’s Army in the Cagayan Valley region and five other officials and members of the communist group were arrested in operations in Quezon City and Bulacan yesterday by police and military operatives.
Gil Peralta, alias Elmo, secretary of the Cagayan Valley regional party and a member of the Central Committee of the communist movement, was nabbed during a raid of his apartment in Barangay Mariblo in Quezon City at around 2:15 a.m.
Officials said Peralta, who is blamed for ambuscades and many other atrocities in Cagayan Valley, was arrested by virtue of warrants of arrest for arson and frustrated murder. Seized from him were an M16 rifle, a cal. 45 pistol, three anti-personnel mines, and a hand grenade.
Simultaneously, troops raided an NPA lair in Barangay San Vicente in Sta. Maria town in Bulacan and arrested the five leaders of the unit.
The five were finance chief Irene Agcaoili alias Ayang, executive committee member Lourdes Bulan alias Simang, intelligence officer Roy Dela Cruz alias Bonel, squad leader Mariano Arcaido Tangonan alias Mariano Ramos, and one Natividad Santos. The five yielded two cal. 45 pistols, two anti-personnel mines, and two hand grenades.
Agcaoili has standing warrants for murder, multiple attempted murder and robbery and has a P700,000 reward for her arrest; while Bulan had arrest warrants for murder and multiple attempted murder.
Police said Agcaoili and Bulan tried to resist arrest but were subdued by the raiding team.
Lt. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos, commander of the AFP’s Northern Luzon Command, said the raid was part of the military efforts to defeat the NPA in Northern and Central Luzon.
