Authorities nabbed a New People’s Army (NPA) insurgent over the weekend in Janiuay’s Barangay Aquino Nobleza West. Thirty four-year-old Karma John Suarez of Santa Barbara’s Barangay Conaynay, who also goes by the aliases of ‘Ka Fred’ and ‘Ka Dennis,’ is currently detained at the Janiuay Police Station after being served an arrest warrant for his role in the 2017 siege of the Maasin Municipal Police Station.
Janiuay Municipal Police Station chief, Police Captain Dadje Delima, affirmed Suarez is an active NPA member with ties to the southern and central front committees of the Komiteng Rehiyon-Panay.
“We have been looking [for] him for more than a year already because he [was] using a fictitious name,” the police official explained.
Judge Judith Orendain-Tonogbanua of the Regional Trial Court-Branch 20 in Mabusao, Capiz, who issued the warrant, set his bail at P40,000.
In July 2017, an estimated 70-member NPA team attacked the Maasin Municipal Police Station and overpowered the police officers inside.
Although no one was killed or injured in the incident, the group took the police station’s firearms, two laptops, P29,000 in cash, and their patrol vehicle, which was later recovered in neighboring Alimodian.
Following the incident, all 23 police officers assigned to the Maasin Municipal Police Station were relieved from their posts and replaced by personnel from the Regional Public Safety Battalion-6./WDJ