'Top NPA leader' nabbed at Negros Occidental checkpoint – AFP

The Armed Forces of the Philippines announced Sunday that it captured a leader of the New People's Army and five companions at a checkpoint in Negros Occidental last Friday. According to a statement from the Philippine Army, Reniel Cellon, 43, his wife Mary Jane Magquilat, 39, and four others were apprehended at a joint AFP/PNP (Philippine National Police) Comelec (Commission on Elections) checkpoint along the national highway in Barangay Dancalan, Ilog, Negros Occidental at 10:30 p.m. on April 5. The report said that the suspects' vehicle tried to avoid the checkpoint, and “a brief chase ensued” before they were captured. Also arrested were the vehicle's driver, Jose Sonny Ditomal, and passengers Rodrigo Maricas, Antonio Estaniel and Edsan Gonzales, all Negros Occidental residents. The four were also brought to the Ilog PNP station. Cellon, alias "Kumpol," and Magquilat, alias "Chin-Chin," have pending warrants of arrest for the murder of 1Lt. Jose Angelo Esguerra, the executive officer of the Army’s 47th Infantry Battalion, in an ambush in Cauayan town in March last year. Cellon also has a warrant of arrest for the charge of frustrated murder. Cellon was found to be in possession of an ARMSCOR .45-caliber pistol, five magazines loaded with ammunition and a fragmentation grenade. Magquilat was said to be carrying a Walther .22-caliber pistol with three magazines loaded with ammunition. Among the items recovered from the vehicle were a rifle grenade, six long and short magazines for M16s loaded with ammunition, nine boxes of 5.56 mm ammunition, and what the report called “voluminous subversive documents of high intelligence value.” — BM, GMA News