November 18, 2024 | 6:18pm
COTABATO CITY — Three long-wanted officials of the New People’s Army (NPA) were arrested in Cotabato City on Saturday, November 16, with the help of former senior NPA members. The suspects, who had operated in Regions 10 and 11, had been eluding authorities for years.
Army Major Gen. Allan Hambala, commander of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, and Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters on Monday, November 18, that Roel Villanueva Cabales and his companions, Catherine Aparis Ginoo and Alma Maey Dulay Masalon, first moved around Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte to avoid detection prior to their arrest in Barangay Bagua 3 in Cotabato City.
Cabales, who is secretary of the NPA’s self-styled Southern Mindanao Regional Committee and his deputy, Ginoo, and Masalon, leader of the big medical team in the SMRC’s Guerilla Front 53, are wanted for high-profile criminal cases, including violation of the anti-terror law, arson and harboring of criminals, that are pending in different courts in Regions 10 and 11.
Local executives and members of the multi-sector Municipal Peace and Order Councils in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte had reported that Cabales and his three companions first hid in areas in both provinces where there is presence of the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters prior to their arrest in Cotabato City last Saturday.
Both terror groups, fashioned from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, are known for providing sanctuary to wanted members of the NPA, as reciprocation for the free movement of wanted violent religious extremists in areas where there is presence of communist insurgents.
Hambala said he is grateful to his counterpart in the 6th Infantry Division, Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, and all intelligence units under him, for helping them trace the exact location of Cabales, Ginoo and Masalon in Cotabato City, enabling personnel of the Cotabato City Police Office and PRO-BAR to arrest them as ordered by different courts.
“It was in provinces under the jurisdiction of the 10th ID where they have perpetrated most of the crimes they are to answer for,” Hambala said.
Macapaz said they are to turn over the three now detained NPA officials to the courts in different provinces outside of the Bangsamoro region that issued the warrants for their arrest.
PRO-BAR officials told reporters that it was former NPAs who have returned to the fold of law through the efforts of the 10th ID who provided information about the presence in Cotabato City of Cabales, Ginoo and Masalon.
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