Top NPA official falls in Malabon

MANILA, Philippines — A team of police and military operatives arrested a man alleged to be a top official of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) in Malabon before dawn yesterday.

Dindo Monsanto, said to be the chief of operations of the NPA Bicol Regional Party Committee’s Regional Operational Command, was apprehended along Javier II street in Barangay Baritan at around 2:30 a.m.

The operation was conducted by personnel from the military’s Joint Task Force-National Capital Region, the Philippine Army’s 9th Infantry Division, police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region (CIDG-NCR) and the Regional Mobile Force Battalion of the National Capital Region Police Office, according to Army spokesman Col. Xerxes Trinidad.

Monsanto is the subject of five standing arrest warrants for murder, attempted murder, frustrated murder, robbery with homicide and violation of the anti-terrorism law issued by various courts, Trinidad said.

An M16 rifle and a .45-caliber pistol, both loaded, and a fragmentation grenade were confiscated from Monsanto, Trinidad added.

As an alleged official of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ armed wing, Monsanto was reportedly involved in the death of Far Eastern University football player Keith Absalon from landmines in Masbate in 2021.

The Army said Monsanto was also involved in an ambush on a police vehicle that left a police officer dead and seven others wounded in Barangay Daguit, Labo, Camarines Norte.

Monsanto also reportedly masterminded the torching of heavy equipment used to construct the Bicol International Airport in Daraga, Albay in September 2017.

He is also believed to be involved in a raid on the Labo police station in Camarines Norte that left five police officers dead on March 24, 2021.

Monsanto was brought to the CIDG-NCR field unit at Camp Crame in Quezon City.