CABANATUAN CITY – Two persons, including an alleged member of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Nueva Ecija were killed and dumped on a national highway in Barangay Puncan, Carranglan, Nueva Ecija by unidentified suspects Monday night, police said Tuesday.
The suspected rebel who was allegedly tagged behind the collection of so-called revolutionary taxes, called by government security agencies as extortion, was identified as Ronnie Estrada, resident of Barangay Bagong Sikat, San Jose City.
Supt. Ricardo Villanueva, commander of the Nueva Ecija police’s provincial public safety company, said Estrada was identified through his identification card while his companion has yet to be named. “Both victims sustained multiple gunshot wounds,” he said, quoting report from the police assistance and action center in Carranglan town.
Authorities recovered from Estrada one .38 pistol and “subversive documents intended for extortion.” Police also recovered from the crime scene empty shells from a .45 pistol. Investigation showed that Estrada had identified himself to northbound truckers as “Ka Omeng” when he issued demand letters for taxation.
The incident occurred less than two weeks after combined police and military forces arrested two graduates of the University of the Philippines (UP) and community organizers of Kabataan and Anakbayan partylists for alleged illegal possession of firearms in Barangay R.T. Padilla of the same municipality.
Gerald Salonga,24, and Guiller Cadano, were also tagged as members of the NPA’s Nueva Ecija-Nueva Vizcaya party committee. Both are graduates of the UP Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga at Clark Freeport, which is also referred to as UP Pampanga or UP Clark, Ruiz said.
Salonga has a degree in psychology while Cadano has a business management degree, she added. The family of both Salonga and Cadano denied their links to the NPA.
