Clueless Reds: Captured CCP leaders under surveillance in Cebu for two months

UNBOWED. Benito Tiamzon (left) and wife Wilma raise their clenched fists as they were escorted to the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame yesterday. The couple, with five others, were captured in Cebu Saturday. (INQUIRER PHOTO)

Complacency may have led spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, chairman and secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), to their arrest by the military.

The Tiamzons didn’t realize that they had been under surveillance by military intelligence operatives in Cebu for two months, said military and police sources who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to issue a statement.

“They were hiding in plain sight,” one source said. “They didn’t know that their movements were being monitored.”

He told the Inquirer that the couple might have thought that no one would look for them in Cebu, which had been declared as insurgent-free.

Last Saturday, the source said the couple were spotted in barangay Valencia, Carcar City.

The Tiamzons, along with five others, boarded separate vehicles – a Hyundai Starex van and a Toyota Innova van – and were heading to Aloguinsan town.

Little did the couple know that a joint police and military team had already set up a checkpoint in barangay Zaragosa, Aloguinsan to intercept them, said another source.

Among those involved in the operation were the Intelligence Security Group, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), the Philippine Army, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Carcar City Police Office.

Sources said that since there was a road block, the two vehicles were forced to stop at the checkpoint.

The couple were immediately arrested since the operatives had copies of the arrest warrants issued by the Northern Samar Regional Trial Court for murder and frustrated murder, the sources said.

Both sources declined to reveal details of the operations, saying there was strict instruction from the military hierarchy that only Malacañang could issue a statement on the arrest.
Military camps in Cebu had been placed on red alert following the arrest of the high ranking officials of the CPP-NPA.

Sources said the couple and five others were brought to the AFP Central Command headquarters in Camp Lapu-Lapu in barangay Lahug Cebu City, where they underwent tactical interrogation.

They were brought to Manila Sunday morning on board an air force Fokker plane that took off from the Benito Ebuen Airbase in Mactan.

Human rights group Karapatan in Central Visayas expressed concern over the condition of the couple and their companions.

Karapatan coordinator Dennis Abarientos said their lawyers tried to get in touch with the detainees on Saturday night but they were not allowed to enter Camp Lapu-Lapu.

He said Wilma’s sister called the office of Karapatan after hearing the news of the couple’s arrest.

Abarientos declined to identify Wilma’s sister who wanted to make sure that the couple were not tortured by the military.

The Karapatan group said they arrived at the camp at past 10 p.m but were barred entry by the camp sentry.

“We just want to ask the detainees what they needed,” said Teresa Alicaba, information officer of Karapatan. “We also want to identify who these people are. We want their families to be informed.”

Abarientos said they didn’t have the names of the five others who were arrested with the couple.

“For all we know, they might just be ordinary residents of Carcar,” he told reporters.

Authorities in Camp Crame in Quezon City where the Tiamzons and five others were taken after arriving from Cebu, identified the others arrested as Rex Garcia Villaflor, Jeosi Mag-abo Nepa, Joel Escandor Enano, Nona Cruz Castillo and Arlene Jose Panea.

IMMUNITY

National Democratic Front (NDF) chief negotiateor Luis Jalandoni condemned the arrests, saying the two were consultants in stalled peace talks who were granted temporary immunity from arrests under a 1995 accord with the government.

In a statement, Jalandoni said Wilma is holder of NDFP Document of Identification ND978226 under her real name “Wilma Austria” while Benito is the holder of NDFP Document of Identification ND 978227 under the assumed name “Crising Banaag.”

Both Tiamzon and Austria are holders of Letter of Acknowledgment signed by then-government peace panel chairman Silvestre H. Bello III, said Jalandoni.

Under Jasig, signed in 1995 by representatives from NDFP and the government, the members, consultants and staff of the NDFP who are part of the negotiating team are granted immunity from arrest, detention and provide safety guarantees to prevent any incident that may jeopardize the peace negotiation.

Malacañang however, stood firm that the police-military operation was legal.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda quoted the statement of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) that claimed the Tiamzons were not under the protective services of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig) after their arrest on Saturday.

Lacierda added that the Philippine government believed that Benito used an alias and that the National Democratic Front (NDF) failed to identify whether Tiamzon was using an alias or prove his true identity, thus voiding his immunity privilege.

In Wilma’s case, she jumped bail while she was under detention on Dec. 26, 1989, six years before the Jasig was signed in 1995, which also voided her immunity privilege.

“[It’s not the] fault of government; the NDF failed to open their own files that purportedly contained the photos and true identities of the said NDF consultants,” said Lacierda quoting OPAPP to dispute NDF’s Luis Jalandoni who said the arrests were illegal.

According to the statement, the Philippine government and the NDF agreed in 2011 that NDF consultants under the protection of the Jasig carrying aliases should be verified with their true identities.

“To sustain their claim to Jasig protection is ridiculous because that would mean they can wage war and violence against government and when caught, claim Jasig protection and expect to be released,” Lacierda said. “It is even more outrageous considering that the peace negotiations have not moved for over a year now.”

Lacierda said the CPP-NPA are the ones to blame “for rendering the Jasig inoperative for most of their alleged consultants.”

A list of 75 rebel consultants supposedly with pictures was jointly deposited by the Philippine government, the rebels and church witnesses in a Dutch vault in 1996 so it could serve as a future basis for identifying guerrilla consultants who could be immune from arrests.

Philippine officials and the rebels, however, discovered in 2011 that two diskettes containing the list have been damaged with the passage of time and its details could no longer be retrieved. It made it impossible for the government to verify rebel claims that some of their captured comrades were in the roster of guerrillas with immunity.

The government’s refusal to release those rebels led to the collapse of yearslong peace talks, brokered by Norway.

PEACE TALKS

The NDF, the political arm of the CPP, had been engaged in peace negotiation with the government for the past 27 years. But the on-and-off peace talks have not moved beyond minor agreements.

Despite the arrests, Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita Deles said the government remained open to resuming peace talks with communist rebels.

“We are always ready for talks to address a doable and time-bound substantive agenda and we continue to hope to get to get to that point sooner rather than later,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a text message.

“The arrest of Benito and Wilma Tiamzon does not change our basic stance that peace negotiations with the CPP/NPA can only proceed with a clear and time-bound agenda that provides some possibility of bringing us closer to a final peace agreement.”

“We continue to hope that the leadership of the CPP/NPA will come to the same conclusion sooner rather later,” she added.

Jose Ma. Sison, exiled founder of the CPP, said the development will not cripple the revolutionary movement.

“When I was arrested, tortured and imprisoned by Marcos, the armed revolution did not stop but continued to grow because the root causes of the armed revolution were not at all solved by capture and detention,” Sison said.

Sison was arrested by military operatives in November 1977 and detained until his release in March 1986. During his incarceration, he suffered worst forms of physical and mental torture under the hands of his captors, he said.