Suspected NPA leader killed in encounter

VILLABA, Leyte – A suspected New People’s Army (NPA) leader was killed during an encounter with government forces here Thursday, officials said.

The Army’s 19th Infantry Battalion commander Lt. Col. Lope Dagoy said Policarpio Opo, alias Kumander Memong, was killed during an encounter with the troops who were about to arrest him.

Opo sustained multiple gunshot wounds and died upon arrival at the Ormoc Sugar Planter’s Association Hospital.

The wounded soldier, identified as Pfc. Bienvenido Orteza, was brought to the same hospital for treatment.

Dagoy said the troops were about to serve the warrant of arrest for Opo at his suspected safehouse in barangay Sta. Cruz here when the firefight occurred.

The military said Opo had served as the secretary of the NPA’s White Area Committee of the Northern Leyte Front and was a ranking officer of the Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

He is the elder brother of Paterno Opo, alias Ka Noble, commander of the NPA’s Northern Leyte Front Guerrilla’s Unit who was among the co-accused in the multiple murder case against Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo stemming from the summary executions of suspected spies and informants in the rebel ranks in the 1980s.

The elder Opo was arrested by military operatives during the Holy Week and is now facing rebellion charges on top of the multiple murder case with Ocampo before the Hilongos, Leyte Regional Trial Court.

Ocampo, who once served as spokesman for the CPP’s National Democratic Front (NDF), was charged with 15 counts of murder allegedly committed during a purge of suspected "spies and counter-revolutionaries" within the ranks of the CPP and the NPA between 1985 and 1991.

Police named Ocampo, CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison and NDF chief Luis Jalandoni as among those who ordered the purges.

The military, on the other hand, has tagged the elder Opo as the executioner of suspected spies and informants buried in mass graves discovered last year in Hilongos.

Dagoy added the Opo brothers are the remaining two top NPA leaders in Leyte.

"The Opo brothers have done more than enough havoc to the economy and the lives of the people of Leyte and it’s about time for (them) to be stopped and to pay for the violent and terroristic misdeeds they had done to the people," Dagoy said.

The Army’s 802nd Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Allan Ragpala said the neutralization of the Opo brothers has considerably weakened the NPA in Leyte. – With Miriam Desacada, Jaime Laude