NPA commander, wife face murder raps in Maasin City

By Jani Arnaiz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Visayas Bureau
First Posted 17:10:00 04/02/2008


MAASIN CITY, Philippines -- A top commander of the New People’s Army in Eastern Visayas, who was arrested in Bacoor, Cavite, along with his wife Clarita, would be brought to the city for arraignment.

Jaime Soledad, 58, would be arraigned in the Regional Trial Court here for murder charges filed against him before the RTC here, said Senior Superintendent Nilo Donaire, Southern Leyte police provincial director.

"Definitely he would be brought here because he could not be arraigned without his personal presence," Donaire said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

He said Soledad and his wife, who was from Inopacan, Leyte, were already in Tacloban City and would be brought to this city anytime this week.

Jaime Soledad is facing murder charges after he and other alleged top ranking rebel leaders were linked to the 1985 murders of suspected government agents found in a mass grave in Inopacan, Leyte in 2006.

Separate multiple murder charges have been filed against Soledad, his wife, and 12 others at the RTC in Baybay, Leyte. Soledad was also wanted for murder and frustrated murder in another case filed at the RTC in Maasin City.

Olive Bernardo, Karapatan services desk coordinator, earlier said what happened to the Soledads was obviously an abduction and a case of illegal detention.

"They (police) did not inform the family and even their lawyers about the arrest. They even denied that they were holding the couple," she said.

A source close to the Soledads confirmed that the couple was already in Tacloban City and appeared to be "in good hands."

Jaime Soledad was the chief negotiator in Southern Leyte for the National Democratic Front (NDF) during a peace talk with the government in the late 1980s.

After the peace talks collapsed, Soledad went back to the underground movement and was wrongly reported to have been killed in an encounter in Albuera, Leyte, in 2006. His mother hails from Albuera.

Soledad is facing charges of 15 counts of murder before RTC Branch 18 in Hilongos, Leyte, together with Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and other CPP top-NPA officials, in connection with the alleged communist purges in Inopacan town in 1985.