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BY MAE SINGUAY and CYRUS GARDE
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Thursday, February 9, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Progressive organizations criticized the arrest of a suspected ranking New People’s Army (NPA) officer in Barangay 2.
Contrary to what she was accused of, Rogina Navarro Quilop was not a finance officer for the NPA but an administrative officer for a nongovernment organization, activists from Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and Karapatan stressed.
Quilop was charged with murder. Officers of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Region 18 caught her around 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
She was in a car with her husband when the operatives, armed with a warrant, flagged them down and ordered her to transfer to their patrol vehicle.
Quilop was brought to the CIDG Region 18 headquarters at Camp Alfredo Montelibano Sr. in Barangay Estefania.
Quilop was implicated in an ambush that killed a soldier in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental in 2010, said Brigadier General Francisco Delfin of the Philippine Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade based in Barangay Minoyan, Murcia town.
Regional Trial Court Branch 60 (Cadiz City) Judge Renato Muñez issued the arrest warrant.
Quilop, a resident of Barangay 10, denied the accusations. She claimed she was with the Center for People’s Resources and Services, Inc., a Bacolod City-based organization working on disaster management and relief operations.
Now that President Rodrigo Duterte terminated the peace talks with the rebels, the Armed Forces and the police have a “thirst” for arresting people supporting the revolutionary movement, said Christian Tuayon, secretary-general for Bayan-Negros.
Quilop claimed she joined the Center for People’s Resources and Services, Inc. in 2009. She said she worked to provide shelter to around 500 survivors of super typhoon “Yolanda” in Cadiz City and other areas in Negros Occidental.
While the CIDG said two witnesses positively identified Navarro, her lawyer Archie Baribar said it may have been a case of mistaken identity.
Clarissa Sinco-Lagatan, chairwoman of Karapatan-Negros, said the murder charge against Quilop was fabricated.
“Targeted harassment” was how Lagatan described the arrest, considering the government’s “all-out war” against the NPA.
“This type of political persecution by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte should be ceased at once,” she said.
Citing the court-issued warrant, regional police director Chief Superintendent Renato Gumban insisted the arrest was legitimate.
“If you are identified in a warrant of arrest, expect that you’ll be arrested,” he stressed.
First Lieutenant Archie Polenzo was killed in the March 2010 ambush in Cadiz City./PN
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