Wanted ranking NPA leader arrested in Surigao del Sur

COTABATO CITY — The police on Wednesday nabbed a ranking leader of the New People’s Army in Surigao del Sur long wanted for high-profile criminal cases pending in different courts.

The 57-year-old Cristitoto Tejero, a senior commander in the NPA's self-styled and now moribund Guerilla Front 19-Northeastern Mindanao Regional Committee, is now locked in a police detention facility in Surigao del Sur.

Brig. Gen. Kirby John Kraft, director of the Police Regional Office-13, told reporters on Thursday that Tejero was cornered by policemen in his hideout in Barangay Buhisan in San Agustin, Surigao del Sur with the help of vigilant informants, among them barangay leaders and municipal officials.

Tejero yielded peacefully when he was shown copies of warrants for his arrest. One of the warrants of arrest came from the Regional Trial Court Branch 27 in Tandag City, where he was charged with murder for allegedly having killed an unarmed, off-duty soldier in Barangay Bolhoon in San Miguel, Surigao del Sur on March 14 last year.

Local executives in Surigao del Sur said Thursday that Tejero was also implicated in armed robbery, extortion and multiple murder in hinterland barangays in the province that were once NPA bastions, now “peace zones” totally free from communist terrorists, driven out in recent months via joint peacebuilding programs of the PRO-13, the local communities and indigenous tribespeople and the military's Eastern Mindanao Command.

Kraft said the RTC Branch 27 in Tandag City has not recommended any bail for Tejero's temporary release from government custody. 

He shall remain incarcerated until the court has fully litigated the criminal cases against him, according to Kraft.