By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (NOPPO) director, Police Colonel Romeo Baleros, confirmed the reported members of a progressive group who were arrested late Wednesday afternoon in Escalante City are members of the New People’s Army (NPA). The law enforcement official said the suspects were positively identified by former NPA rebels who had recently surrendered.
The NOPPO head said it is possible the arrested were planning to attack the medical mission for former NPA rebels and their families at the Escalante Coliseum.
Additionally, Baleros strongly believes the insurgents may be the same unit encountered by elements of the Philippine Army 79th Infantry Battalion in the city’s Barangay Old Poblacion last Tuesday, which resulted in the arrest of two NPA insurgents.
The recent arrests were made after police recovered five .45 caliber pistols, a .38 caliber revolver, a KG-9 sub-machine gun, three rifle grenades, two improvised explosive devices, 21 molotov cocktails, and assorted ammunition from their vehicle.
The arrested suspects denied the weapon recovered from their vehicle belonged to them and accused law enforcement of planting the items.
They claimed, prior to the arrest, they were flagged down by men clad in civilian clothes and wearing bonnets who demanded to see their “permits” and subsequently searched their vehicle.
The men supposedly planted two pistols, a .38 caliber and a 9mm, then placed empty rum bottles they later claimed were intended for making molotov cocktails.
They also seized their mobile phones deleted documentation photos.
The nine face charges for illegal possession of firearms, ammunition, and explosives, and are detained at the Escalante City Police Station./DGB, WDJ