CPP leader nabbed in Davao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – A senior leader of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was arrested by government agents in Davao City on Wednesday, May 7.

Lieutenant Col Jacob Obligado, commander of the civil-military operations of the 10th Infantry Division based here, said members of the military, intelligence community and the police arrested Roy Erecre, alleged secretary of the Central Visayas Regional Committee of the CPP, and his supposed girlfriend Judith Jaron-Niog.

Eastern Mindanao Command public affairs chief Capt. Alberto Caber said Erecre and Niog were arrested inside a subdivision in Sasa at around 11 am.

“Erecre was arrested by virtue of several unbailable warrants of arrest from regional trial Courts in Cebu and Bohol for atrocities against civilians and government forces in Bohol in the late 1990s and early 2000’s. He also led the ambush which killed the late Lt. Que and Lt. Bungaos in 1999 in Carmen, Bohol,” Caber said.

Caber added that Erecre is an alternate member of the CPP’s central committee, and that his arrest is another huge blow to the revolutionary movement.

Erecre and Niog were immediately moved to Cebu to face charges there.

Key communist leaders have been arrested in the last couple of years, with the biggest ones – alleged CPP chairman Benito Tiamzon and wife Wilma Austria-Tiamzon –  falling into government hands last March.

The on-again, off-again peace talks between the Philippine government and the CPP’s political arm, the National Democratic Front, collapsed late last year. It’s aimed at ending Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency. – Rappler.com