Another Escaped Magdalo Officer Captured

BY BULATLAT
Posted 5:00 p.m. Feb 21, 2006

At exactly 12:30 p.m., the Huey helicopter that transported captured Oakwood mutineer First Lieutenant Lawrence San Juan landed at the Headquarters of the Philippine Army in Fort Bonifacio, Makati City. 

San Juan was captured a day after he publicly warned that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who faces charges of fraud and human rights abuses, will be booted from power by the end of February.

San Juan, who wore a checkered green and white polo and denim pants, was escorted by around 15 of his captors including Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) Chief Maj. Gen. Pedro Cabuay Jr.

After alighting from the helicopter, San Juan was brought into a midnight green AUV. Army spokesman Major Bartolome Bacarro said the captured mutineer will be brought to the Army Intelligence and Security Group (ISG) for debriefing.

Cabuay, in a briefing with the media immediately after he alighted from the chopper, said San Juan was captured Tuesday at exactly 5:45 a.m. at Barangay (village) San Felipe, Lipa City, Batangas (84 km south of Manila) by combined forces of the army, police, the Philippine Air Force’s 740th Combat Group and provincial intelligence forces.

The Solcom chief also confirmed reports that the Oakwood mutineer was captured with a certain Albert Guyal, tagged as a New People’s Army (NPA) guerilla, and Jose Christopher Belmonte who, according to Cabuay, is a counsel for San Juan.

The three, Cabuay said, were left behind in Batangas and will be charged for allegedly coddling a fugitive.

Cabuay said San Juan was monitored to have met with NPA leaders night of Feb. 21 in Barangay Bukal, Padre Garcia. He said this was confirmed by the subversive documents recovered in the area where the alleged meeting took place. He did not give details.

“Tumakbo si San Juan kaya nahuli sya sa checkpoint,” (San Juan ran and was captured in a checkpoint.) Cabuay said. It has been earlier reported that San Juan was held at a checkpoint while on board a Mitsubishi Adventure mini-van with plate number XAY-269.

“This is an unholy alliance between two groups with different ideologies,” Cabuay said referring to the alleged alliance between the Magdalo and the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that has been waging a 37-year protracted people’s war.

CPP spokesperson Rogelio “Ka Roger” Rosal, in a radio interview over dzRH this morning, said he had no knowledge of the said meeting.

San Juan is one of the four members of Magdalo, a young military officers’ group that staged a mutiny against the Macapagal-Arroyo administration in July 2003, who escaped from detention midnight of Feb. 17.

Cabuay said the three other escaped mutineers are still in hiding but manhunt operations for their capture are underway. Bulatlat

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