21 NPA rebels charged for Nueva Ecija priest’s murder

SAN JOSE CITY — Police have filed charges of forcible abduction with murder against three leaders and 18 members of the local New People’s Army (NPA) unit for the killing of an Aglipayan priest two years ago.

Elements of the Army’s 71st Infantry Battalion dug up the skeletal remains of Dakila Lopez of the Philippine Independent Church at Mt. Williams in Barangay Villa Floresta here last Jan. 21.

Lopez had been missing since May 22, 2001.

The three NPA leaders charged were Emeterio Antalan, head of the Nueva Ecija Provincial Party Committee; Ely Agmaliw, head of the Kilusang Larangang Gerilya; and one Ka Dante, a team leader of the Samahang Yunit Pampropaganda.

Chief Inspector Rhoderick Armamento, chief of the provincial intelligence and intelligence bureau, said Agmaliw was the one who ordered Lopez’s abduction and later headed the panel that gave instructions for his killing.

Ka Dante, he said, headed the group that snatched the Aglipayan priest.

According to intelligence reports, the NPA’s "kangaroo court" tried Lopez for allegedly misrepresenting various groups in soliciting funds and misappropriating them.

Armamento said Lopez got the rebel group’s ire when he allegedly could not account for P200,000 in funds he had collected from certain politicians in the 2001 elections.

Lopez’s common-law wife Catherine Flores, 22, said 20 armed men seized him at about 10:30 p.m. on May 22, 2001 in Sitio San Pugo, Barangay Kita-kita.

She quoted the armed men as saying they had information that Lopez was keeping guns and shabu in his house.

When Lopez could not show anything, they searched the entire house and only found an airgun, two cellular phones and a night-vision telescope. They then handcuffed and took him away.

A police-military search for Lopez proved futile until a former NPA sympathizer tipped off authorities about a mass grave of people killed by the NPA at Mt. Williams.