NPA rebels kill cop in Mindanao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 1, 2010) – Communist rebels have owned up to the killing of a police officer in restive region of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Roel Agustin II, of the New People’s Army Conrado Heredia Command, said they carried out the assassination of Romie Cabuñas, who was gunned down this week in the town of Boston in Davao Oriental province.

Agustin tagged the officer as allegedly behind the spate of killings of innocent civilians and extortion in the province.

“The masses are secretly celebrating this latest triumph of justice against a rabidly fascist and corrupt officer of the regime's Philippine National Police. During his fascist stint as chief intelligence officer of Boston-PNP, Senior Police Officer 1 Cabuñas was a fanatical counterrevolutionary operative engaged in vicious suppression campaigns under Operation Plan Bantay Laya I and II that have victimized hundreds of peasants and indigenous people in Boston, Davao Oriental,” he said, referring to the codename of the government’s anti-insurgency campaign in the country.

“In his 30 years in service, Cabuñas had the distinction of being a hard-core fascist thug equally despised and feared by the people. He has a notorious record of victimizing people. He ran an extortion racket that collected daily from poor farmers and fishermen, small businesses and logging concessions in Boston town. He has the penchant of mauling civilians, especially the young people, when they are unfortunate to cross him.”

The New People’s Army, armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, said the killing should serve as a stern warning against corrupt and abusive policemen.

“Men in uniform like SPO1 Cabuñas are proof of the dyed-in-the-wool rottenness of the reactionary armed forces. Fascist mercenaries to the core, they are at the beck-and-call of the big landlords, compradors and warlord bureaucrats of the equally rotten reactionary regime. They have no compassion for hapless civilians and no respect at all for even the most basic of human rights,” Agustin said. (Mindanao Examiner)