Police and military officials say suspected communist rebels have abducted and killed a southern Philippine town mayor who helped the government’s anti-insurgency campaign and his son.
Chief Superintendent Vert Chavez said the bodies of mayor Dario Otaza and his 27-year-old son, Daryl Otaza, were found hogtied and with multiple gunshot wounds on Monday in southern Butuan City, hours after suspected New People’s Army rebels disguised as government agents snatched them from their home.
Former rebel
Otaza was a former rebel who surrendered and later became mayor of southern Agusan del Sur province’s Loreto town, which he helped liberate from insurgents’ influence.
He became an outspoken critic of the Communist movement and helped convince nearly 250 rebels, most of them members of his Lumad indigenous community, to surrender to the government.