Murder charges filed vs 8 NPAs for Albay killing

Eight New People’s Army (NPA) members were charged with murder for the May 3 ambush-killing of retired Superintendent Enrique Bausa, who was running for councilor in Daraga, Albay and refused to pay a “permit to campaign” fee to the rebels.

Reports reaching Camp Crame identified one of the eight NPA rebels as Armando Dolor, alias Ka Bino, a member of the NPA’s Sparrow hit squad.

Aside from murder charges, the eight rebels were also charged with robbery for taking Bausa’s service pistol after the ambush.

Bausa was waylaid while he was talking to members of the Concerned Daragueños League Inc., which he founded shortly after he retired from the police service.

Bausa, a multi-awarded police officer, was a former chief of the Daraga police.

Superintendent Jose Capinpin, Albay police director, said the charges were filed before the provincial prosecutor’s office after witnesses identified Dolor as one of the eight rebels who staged the ambush-killing.

Capinpin said investigation showed Bausa had refused to pay a “permit to campaign fee” to the NPA.

Bausa’s “sterling record of accomplishments against insurgency when he was still in the service” could have also prompted the rebels to kill him, he added.

Bausa was among the pillars of Bicol’s Kasurog police philosophy of involving the community in maintaining peace and order that has greatly reduced the grip of insurgents in the region.

The NPA imposed “permit to campaign” and “permit to win” fees on local candidates during the May 14 elections to further strengthen its 38-year-old armed struggle.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales earlier said the NPA collected over P100 million in such fees during the recent polls.