BAGUIO CITY: A communist guerrilla commander who had his brother assassinated for giving up their armed rebellion has been arrested, police said Tuesday.
With the said arrest, it took nine years before renegade priest Conrado Balweg turned rebel receives justice, as his younger brother has all this time been tagged as the assassin.
Jovencio Balweg, a member of the executive committee and a political officer of the New People’s Army (NPA) operating in Abra and nearby provinces, was arrested together with his wife Carmen alias Dumay, who as medical officer of the NPA.
Police Director Chief Supt. Orlando Pestaño of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) said police forces pounced on the two after they were tipped off that the couple were staying in a friend’s house in Camp 7, Baguio City.
The arrested rebel has P1-million peso bounty on his head, as well as two standing warrants of arrest for cases involving murder and frustrated murder in Baguio.
Philippine National Police chief Director General Jesus Versoza recalled that the young Balweg was the assassin of his brother Conrado Balweg who decided to junk the NPA and put up the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) lording in the mountain ranges of Cordillera.
The CPLA had been the number one enemy of the NPA in the Cordillera because of contradictions in their beliefs.
A death sentence was imposed on Father Balweg by the kangaroo court of the NPA in December 1999 accusing the rebel priest of serious violations of human rights.
Among the alleged victims of the New People’s Army “death squads” led by the younger Balweg were his own brother, defrocked Roman Catholic priest Conrado Balweg.
The elder Balweg joined the movement with his brother, but was assassinated in 1999 after he split from the group and his breakaway faction signed a peace treaty with the government.
Pestaño said that Jovencio Balweg sits on the regional executive committee of the NPA’s mother organization, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and his wife serves as top provincial commander. — Sammy Martin, Reporter, Manila Times with AFP
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