Another senior communist rebel held in Philippines

ILOILO CITY, Philippines – The Philippine military said Sunday, August 2, it had detained a senior communist rebel leader, the latest in a series of arrests or killings which have damaged one of the world’s longest-running insurgencies.

Military agents and police arrested Maria Concepcion Araneta-Bocala, a central committee member of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), at a home in Iloilo City on the central island of Panay on Saturday, military spokesmen said.

They seized two pistols and a hand grenade.

A military statement identified Bocala as the secretary in charge of communist rebel forces in Panay, a largely rural island with a population of over four million.

“Her arrest will (cause) another vacuum in the leadership of the CPP-NPA organization that has been rocked by successive arrests and neutralization efforts,” said military spokesman Colonel Noel Detoyato in a statement

He credited “months of intelligence work” for the capture, adding that Bocala would face charges of murder and rebellion.

The suspect reportedly had a bounty of P7.8 million ($173,400) on her head.

The CPP and its 4,000-strong armed wing, the NPA or New People’s Army, has for 46 years waged a Maoist guerrilla campaign which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, largely in rural areas mired in poverty.

A leading NPA commander Leonardo Pitao was killed in a mountainous hamlet near the major southern city of Davao in June.

Earlier that month Adelberto Silva, described by the military as the “highest-ranking” CPP-NPA leader, was captured. Last year CPP chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife Wilma Tiamzon, the party’s secretary-general, were arrested. – Rappler.com