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By Herbie
Gomez
CAGAYAN DE ORO
CITY: Six heavily armed men who introduced themselves as government
agents snatched a suspected high-ranking Communist Party member in a
crowded area in broad daylight here on Monday. But neither the
police nor the military have official records of the incident.
Highly placed
sources who spoke on condition of anonymity identified the suspected
communist rebel leader as Leo Velasco, a member of a communist group
that allegedly conspired with the Magdaló to overthrow the Arroyo
administration.
Velasco uses
the aliases Mike, Andy Santos and Alejandro Montezon Cerillo.
One of the
sources said Velasco was serving as a finance officer in the
Communist Party.
Velasco was
carrying a traveling bag with over P500,000 at that time, according
to one highly placed source.
Witnesses
Despite
witnesses’ accounts, the local police and the army’s 4th
Infantry Division here claimed they have no records of the alleged
abduction.
‘’We are
not aware of that,’’ said Maj. Samuel Sagun. ‘’As far as the
4th ID is concerned, it never happened.’’
Sagun added:
‘’If a big fish like him is caught, we would definitely announce
it because that’s a big accomplishment on the part of the
military. But we have no official report on that.’’
Witnesses,
however, told this paper that armed men who introduced themselves as
government agents literally threw Velasco into a gray L300 van with
license plates LCV-513 near Aguinaldo and Yacapin streets about
10:30 a.m. Monday.
They said the
suspects used a back-up vehicle, a black Toyota Revo with license
plates ending in “692.”
The Land
Transportation Office (LTO) in northern Mindanao said it has no
records of vehicles with such license plates.
Impostors?
The military
and the police also denied owning the vehicles.
But a police
officer said on condition of anonymity that the van matched the
description of a vehicle being used by intelligence agents of the
military during “special operations.”
One of the
armed men told curious onlookers to keep calm because, supposedly,
they were from the government.
Witnesses said
one of the armed men wore a sleeveless jacket with the markings
‘’CIDG.”
The Criminal
Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) here denied its agents were
responsible for the alleged abduction.
‘’They
could be impostors,’’ said Senior Insp. Joie Pacito Yap, CIDG
operations officer for Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental.
Yap said the
police group has not carried out a single operation here in the past
two weeks.
Senior Supt.
Aurelio Trampe, police director for Cagayan de Oro, said the city
police has no record of the alleged abduction. But ‘’I will
check with my intelligence men,’’ he said.
San Juan
contact
According to
sources, Velasco’s name was found in documents seized by the
military from 1Lt. Lawrence San Juan during the officer’s
recapture in Batangas on February 21, 2006, following his supposed
meeting with communist leaders. San Juan had escaped from Fort
Bonifacio in January 2006.
San Juan is
the same officer who turned his back on the Magdaló group and who
reaffirmed his allegiance to the government in July 2006.
Velasco is
believed to be a member the Communist Party’s Central Committee
and a group referred to as ‘’P’’ in a document allegedly
seized from San Juan. Other alleged members of ‘’P’’ are
Prudencio Calubid, Tirso Alcantara and Edilberto Calubid.
Velasco,
together with Alcantara, Bartolome Melchor and Philip Limjuco, has
also been linked by the police to a group in the New People’s Army
(NPA) that assassinated former NPA chief Romulo Kintanar inside a
Japanese restaurant in Manila in January 2003.
The four are
suspected to be ranking members of the National Partisan Committee,
allegedly a special operations arm of the NPA that carries out
liquidation orders from Communist Party founder Jose Ma. Sison.
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