(Eagle News) — The Philippine National Police said authorities foiled a “liquidation” plan by New People’s Army hitmen possibly in Metro Manila, after three of them were killed in an armed encounter with an arresting team in Laguna on Friday morning.
The PNP identified the fatalities as Rommel Rizza alias Bernie/ Jomar, commanding officer of the Regional Special Operations Group and Special Partisan Unit of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee and two other SPARU members identified only by their aliases as Blue/Billy, and alias Dean, supply officer and intelligence officer of RSOG, STRPC, respectively.
According to the PNP, Rizza is the subject of two warrants of arrest for murder and kidnapping.
The warrant was issued by Rodolfo Obnamia, Jr, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 64 of Mauban, Quezon.
The PNP said the arresting team composed of operatives from the PNP-Special Action Force, Armed Forces of the Philippines Intelligence Team, Police Regional Office-4A Regional Mobile Force Battalion, and Sta. Rosa Police Station were approaching the Greenhouse Transient in Buena Rosa Subdivision, Barangay Macabling, Sta. Rosa to serve the warrant of arrest against Rizza when they were met by gunfire from the suspects, triggering a brief shootout at 1:20 a.m.
The three died on the spot.
Recovered from the suspects were a 5.56mm Elisco M-16 rifle, and two cal.45 pistols with magazine assemblies loaded with live ammunition.
Police Brigadier General Felipe Natividad, SAF acting director, told PNP Chief Guillermo Eleazar that the CPP-NPA was maintaining staging areas and weapons storage in CALABARZON for its urban hit squads to launch attacks in Metro Manila.
He said the CPP-NPA SPARU hit squad had also deployed several cells in CALABARZON as its staging area for terrorist activities in Metro Manila, particularly for hit jobs on targeted government officials including spokespersons of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.