A TOP New People’s Army commander in Mindanao was killed in a firefight with government soldiers in Davao de Oro province on Wednesday night, the military reported yesterday.
The slain rebel leader was identified as Menandro Villanueva, alias Bok, secretary of the rebel movement’s Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee that operates in the entire Davao region and parts of Northern Mindanao, Soccsksargen, and Caraga.
Villanueva is also said to be the commander of the NPA’s National Operations Command and member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA’s political wing.
Troops under the Army’s 1001st Infantry Brigade were conducting military operations in Barangay Libudon in Mabini town at around 7 p.m. when they figured in a 10-minute clash with Villanueva’s group, said Capt. Martk Anthony Tito, spokesman of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division.
Tito said the operation was conducted after a “concerned citizen” reported the presence of Villanueva’s group, the 10th ID said in the statement.
“Alias Bok was hit in several parts of his body resulting in his demise. Troops are still conducting pursuit operations to the fleeing CNTs (CPP-NPA Terrorists),” the 10th ID said.
The 10th ID said Villanueva was one of the two founding members of the NPA in Mindanao in the 1970s, the other being Edgar Jopson, who died after military raided his lair in Davao City in 1982.
Villanueva was an activist under Kabataang Makabayan while a student of Ateneo de Manila and went underground when martial law was declared in 1972 by then President Ferdinand Marcos.
“Alias Bok supervised the operations of the CPP/NPA in the whole of Mindanao and directly controlled the operations of the New People’s Army as head of the National Operations Command of the NPA,” the 10th ID said.
