COMMUNIST rebels admitted responsibility for the death of the sister of rebel leader Leoncio “Ka Parago” Pitao last May 23.
According to the New People’s Army (NPA), Evelyn Pitao was executed because she played a key role in the execution of a brother last year, the arrest of her former husband early this year, and the arrest of Ka Parago himself in 1999.
Evelyn was killed last May 23 while waiting for her live-in partner Roberto Dadula along the road at Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte. When Roberto returned to find Evelyn sprawled on the ground, he put up a fight but was also shot and killed.
The couple was engaged in the trade of gmelina lumber and was at sitio Kauswagan, Barangay Bobongon in Sto. Tomas to pay for some logs they bought when the incident happened.
The rebel group, however, denied any hand in the death of 21-year-old Rebelyn Pitao, Parago’s daughter, although it is anticipating the military will try to blame Rebelyn’s death on the NPA because of its admission in killing Evelyn.
The NPA also apologized for the death of Evelyn’s partner, Roberto Dadula.
“The fatal shooting of her live-in partner Roberto Dadula should have not been resorted to since he was not a target nor did his resistance take place in an armed manner and thus, posed no threat to the NPA team. Appropriate measures are being undertaken to continuously address this distressing concern and implement the NPA rules on the matter, in accordance with the international humanitarian law,” said the statement sent allegedly by Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesperson of the Merardo Arce Command.
From what the NPA said, Evelyn Pitao was the former wife of high-ranking rebel leader Regenaldo Alicaba, 51, alias Ka Emong, who was arrested by the military last January 18 around 1:30 a.m. at Barangay J.P. Laurel in Panabo City.
Alicaba, when arrested, was accompanied by his 26-year-old daughter Rizalyn Alicaba-Mangulimutan.
The military identified Alicaba as the commanding officer of the Sub-Regional Guerrilla Unit (SRGU) and deputy secretary of Guerrilla Front (GF) 33 of the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee (SMRC).
“Blood debts” incurred as an intelligence agent of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), was how the NPA described the crime Evelyn was executed for in a statement by the rebel group’s Merardo Arce Command dated May 26, 2009.
Mangulimutan was earlier quoted by another local daily newspaper as blaming the military for Evelyn’s death.
The police earlier identified Evelyn as Iris Belen Berano and were thus hesitant to confirm she was indeed Parago’s sister. It turned out that she has not been using her real name so as not to be associated with the wanted rebel.
In its statement, the NPA said Evelyn was killed by members of the Ka Paking Guimbaolibot Red Partisan Brigade-NPA (KPGRPB-NPA) after the decision to mete the capital punishment was reached by their “revolutionary people’s court” last February 2009, which was further reviewed and upheld by the Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
The NPA claims that it conducted “extensive and meticulous investigation” and has “established without any tinge of doubt her (Evelyn) direct and clear complicity in three state-instigated political crimes against the people and the revolutionary movement.”
The NPA enumerated the three “crimes” as:
1. The killing of her brother Danilo Pitao in Barangay Mankilam Tagum City in June 2008;
2. The arrest of her former husband, Ka Emong, in Panabo City in January 2009;
3 The arrest of her brother, Ka Parago in Davao City in November 1999.
“Evelyn Pitao’s involvement in military intelligence operations started in 1998 when the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) hatched a national plan to capture her brother, Ka Parago. During the raid by then Military Intelligence Group 11 (MIG 11) Group Commander Colonel Palabrica on the residence of Ka Parago’s family in November 1999, Evelyn Pitao and her live-in partner at that time relayed accurate information on the exact whereabouts of her brother. This resulted in the capture of Ka Parago. Her then live-in partner, a former NPA guerrilla turned MIG 11 asset, was killed in 2001 for various crimes,” the NPA statement said.
The rest of the statement read as follows:
“The MIG-AFP was able to re-establish connection with Evelyn Pitao sometime in 2006. She was directly recruited first as an intelligence asset and later as an intelligence agent whose principal task was to provide information pertinent to two case-operational plans targeting her brother Ka Parago and former husband, Ka Emong.
In the ensuing intelligence operations in 2007-2008, Evelyn Pitao pinpointed the whereabouts of her brother Danilo whom the MIG-AFP targeted for surveillance on the premise that being a sibling, he was in constant touch with Ka Parago. After failing to extract valuable information from Danilo, who in the first place had no links with the revolutionary movement other than being Ka Parago’s younger brother, the Military Intelligence Battalion (MIB) of the 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command-AFP murdered Danilo Pitao on June 2008 in Tagum City.
In the performance of vital intelligence task in the covert operations versus Ka Parago and Ka Emong, Evelyn Pitao again provided accurate information to MIG 11 and MIB-10th ID-AFP, which led to the abduction of Ka Emong on January 2009 while he was on a medical leave and staying at the house of their eldest daughter in Panabo City.
After Ka Emong’s abduction by 10th ID-AFP intelligence operatives, the Merardo Arce Command-NPA resumed its investigation on the case of Evelyn Pitao on the basis of a complaint lodged before a local organ of revolutionary political power in Davao del Norte.
After a prima facie case was established, an order of her arrest, together with several others involved in the killing of Danilo and the capture of Ka Emong and Ka Parago, was issued on February 2009. They were eventually tried in absentia by the People’s Court where Evelyn Pitao, together with several others, were found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the murder of Danilo Pitao, the abduction and torture of Ka Emong and the arrest of Ka Parago. Evelyn Pitao was one of those meted the penalty of death.”
Insisting that it does not have any hand in Rebelyn’s death as military investigators have often implied, the NPA said: “The operations of the KPGRPB NPA to implement the decision of the People’s Court after the same was upheld by the Regional Party Committee in February was underway when the abduction, rape, torture and killing of Rebelyn Pitao happened.”
It added the military has in fact been trying to force members of the family of rebel leaders to turn against their rebel kin by using force and intimidation, as they apparently did to Evelyn.
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