Cops nab 2 NPA leaders
3 others too in San Carlos
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

Two more suspected leaders of the New People's Army were arrested Friday with three others at a checkpoint, jointly manned by the local police, 6 th Regional Public Safety Battalion and the 62 nd Infantry Battalion in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.

The two arrested rebel leaders were identified as Hernando Llorente, alias Ka Ador, and his wife, Faith Roseen Basergo, alias Bea, said to be the platoon leader of the Sentro De Grabidad platoon of the Northern Negros Front and former NNF secretary, respectively, military records show.

Col. Oscar Lactao, 303 rd Infantry Brigade commander, yesterday said Llorente and his wife have pending arrest warrants for robbery-in-band, in connection with the NPA raid on the fishpond of Joseph Edgar Sarrosa, a nephew of Governor Joseph Maranon Jr., in Brgy. Bulanon, Sagay City, last year, whose raiders took several high-powered firearms and an ICOM radio base.

The National Democratic Front-Negros yesterday dismissed as “fantasy-statistic” military claims, about the decrease in the New People's Army armed strength and the surrender of its members, waning of their mass base, and isolation from the support of the people, because of Oplan Bayanihan.

NDF spokesperson Ka Frank Fernandez, in a statement he issued, said Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. and the 3rd Infantry Division have parroted the official propaganda psywar line of the Armed Forces and national government, by repeatedly declaring that there are only 212 NPA members left in Negros.

Fernandez, however, said the people of Negros can never be deceived by what he calls lies and disinformation by the military, adding that the people have been honed in 43 years of civil war in the country.

Romeo Baldevarona, head of the Commission on Human Rights-Bacolod, yesterday advised the City Police to neutralize the members of the Dipolog-Ozamis-Parohinog crime group in a “bloodless” manner.

On Friday, City Police Director Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz ordered his policemen to shoot the group's members in the head in the event that they encounter any of them and they fight back.

Baldevarona said that, under the law, policemen can shoot back if their lives are in danger during armed engagements only, to protect themselves, their family or strangers, but not to kill.