Probers tag rebel group behind Pampanga ambush

ARAYAT, Pampanga — Police tagged yesterday the rebel group Rebolusyonaryong Gerilya ng Arayat (RGA) as behind last Monday’s ambush of the party of this town’s Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) president, which left two of his security aides dead.

One of the ambushers was killed when the group of ABC president Chito Espino fired back. He was identified as Popong Magat, alias Ka Reggie, a confirmed RGA member.

This and the testimonies of witnesses led the police to believe that RGA founder Norberto "Mel" Lumbang allegedly masterminded the ambush of the party of Espino, younger brother of Arayat Mayor Benigno Espino.

"I have instructed my men to target not only the RGA, but also other armed groups as part of our intensified campaign against loose firearms. The police would ask for search warrants from the courts (for raids on) houses of people suspected to belong to armed groups," said Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Mendoza, Pampanga police director.

Chito Espino had alighted from his Honda CRV car in front of his house in Barangay Cacutud at about 4:30 p.m. last Monday when the gunmen, on board a red pick-up van and a Hyundai van, fired at him and his men.

The volley of gunfire killed Espino’s security aides Fernando Martinez and Marcelo Perez, while his driver Ramonchito Galang was seriously wounded. Espino sustained minor shrapnel wounds.

Mendoza suspects that Lumbang was apparently retaliating against Espino whom he had reportedly accused of masterminding a failed ambush against him in the past.

Some of Espino’s men claimed they knew some of the ambushers.

"We are filing appropriate charges against Lumbang and about 12 other people who were in the two vehicles used in the ambush," Mendoza said.

Lumbang founded the RGA in 1995. There have been nagging reports that it is being used as a paramilitary group of both the military and the police.

Its members are reportedly mostly former members of the New People’s Army (NPA), although the NPA and the Rebolusyonaryong Hukbo ng Bayan (RHB), a breakaway communist group, have been at odds with it.