Friday, April 25, 2008 Intelligence hopes to gather info from Hugo
SINCE the armed communist fronts in Cebu and Bohol Provinces are deemed dismantled, officers in the local intelligence community believe that the remaining communist rebels have concentrated on the Oriental Negros provinces.
Regional Intelligence Division (RID) Chief Augusto Marquez Jr. said they hope to confirm such reports from former Nagkahiusang Drayber sa Sugbo spokesperson Alex Hugo, who was arrested in a mountain village of Argao, Cebu.
Hugo was arrested early Wednesday morning on the strength of an arrest warrant for violation of the forestry code and for illegal possession of firearms.
He also yielded a .45 pistol, an M14 replica and accessories and ammunition.
Marquez told Sun.Star Cebu that they only assumed Hugo has replaced Jigger Geverola as secretary of the Front Committee 5, but they have yet to verify this.
He said they are still questioning Hugo to verify some of the information that they have.
Marquez also asked the Regional Intelligence Office (RIO) to find out from a medical officer if the wound that Hugo has on one of his soles is indeed a gunshot wound.
This is because police have reports that Hugo was wounded in an encounter with army soldiers in Guihulngan in Oriental Negros last month.
Marquez said most of the information they have on Hugo was his involvement in Nadsu and his work in promoting political issues of the National Democratic Front.
“There are assumptions that he indeed replaced Geverola, but that is all subject for confirmation,” Marquez said.
Senior Supt. Carmelo Valmoria, director of the Cebu Provincial Police Office, said that Front 5 did not materialize, although the movement wanted to expand their operations in Cebu by creating another front in the mid-south.
Although he was arrested in Argao, Hugo was not actually operating in the area and went there just to heal a gunshot wound, Valmoria said.
Rebels had tried to create another front in the mid-south of Cebu some three years ago but they did not succeed.
Last year, Front 2, which was in Cebu’s mid-north, was considered dismantled.
Valmoria said Front 2 has now been reduced to a section committee. (MEA)
