Forty-three people were arrested yesterday in a raid on a house in the northern Philippines that a military spokesman said led to the biggest detention of suspected communist rebels in memory.
However, a family member of the raided house’s owner said those detained were medical professionals holding a training workshop before going on aid projects in rural areas.
A military spokesman said soldiers and police raided the house in the town of Morong in search of illegal firearms and found 17 men and 26 women, along with two handguns, three grenades, improvised explosives and documents.
The 43 were all taken in, Lieutenant Colonel Noel Detoyato said, adding that: “I have never seen such a big group arrested. This is the biggest ever.”
He said those detained were all suspected of belonging to the New People’s Army (NPA), the 5,000-strong armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969.
“From our initial investigation, it appears that they were being taught how to make explosives,” Detoyato said.
However, Mary Velmonte, daughter of the house’s owner, doctor Melencia Velmonte, said that as far as the family knew, the meeting was part of a medical training workshop held by a non-political group called Conmed.
“All the people who were in the house were asked to leave while the search was conducted,” she said.
Afterwards, the military presented explosives that they said had been found at the house, she added.
The search warrant authorizing the raid said police were to look for a certain “Mario Conde,” but Velmonte said she did not know who this person was.
A military statement said those arrested were identified as NPA members, adding that “some of them were among the culprits of atrocities like liquidation, murder, arson and abduction.”
In another development, one NPA guerrilla was killed yesterday in Mindanao after troops responded to a tip-off from residents that armed men had entered Lupon town, another military spokesman said.
Two assault rifles and a shotgun were recovered after the incident, Captain Emanuel Garcia said.
The military said in December it had reduced the territory controlled by the rebels, freeing four central islands from guerrilla control for the first time in decades.
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