Mayor Otaza and Reina Nasino both deserve justice

DENNIS Rodinas became the second New People’s Army (NPA) personality wanted in Mindanao to fall in Central Visayas since September 17. On October 11, military and police shot and killed Rodinas at his house, still under construction, in Barangay Pung-ol Sibugay, one of Cebu City’s mountain barangay (villages). Rodinas — 46, from Magpet, North Cotabato, with plenty of blood on his hands — and Junifie Dagale, who was arrested in Bohol on September 17, were both wanted for their participation in numerous crimes in Mindanao, including the abduction of the Compostela Valley jail warden in 2014 and attacks on the properties of the Lapanday and Lorenzo group of companies in Davao City in 2017. But the crime that Rodinas was wanted for in particular was the abduction and murder of the mayor of Loreto, Agusan del Sur, Dario Otaza, and his son, Daryl, five years ago. The bodies of the two men were found hogtied and with multiple gunshot wounds in the morning of Oct. 20, 2015.

The “crime” for which the NPA meted Mayor Otaza (and his son) the “death penalty” was the mayor’s having been successful “in encouraging 246 NPA members and leaders, majority of whom are lumads, to surrender” (Official Gazette, Oct. 23, 2015). Not long before his brutal murder, Otaza had facilitated the surrender of 154 rebels. More were expected to follow. “Several NPA rebels, who enjoy kinship with Mayor Otaza through the IP (indigenous people) network, have indicated a desire to reenter formal society because of the mayor’s integrity, credibility and the success of his program,” then Undersecretary Manny Bautista said in an official statement.