Philippine mayor, son killed by suspected communist rebels

MANILA — A mayor who had helped the Philippine government combat insurgents was abducted and killed along with his son by suspected communist rebels, police and military officials said Tuesday. Chief Superintendent Vert Chavez said the bodies of Mayor Dario Otaza and his 27-year-old son, Daryl Otaza, were found tied up and with multiple gunshot wounds early Tuesday in southern Butuan City, hours after suspected New People’s Army rebels disguised as government agents disarmed the mayor’s bodyguards and snatched the two from their home. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this cowardly act,” presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma said in a statement. 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 helped convince more than 250 rebels, most of them members of his Lumad indigenous community, to surrender to the government, said former military chief of staff Manuel Bautista, who now heads a Cabinet committee on security. He said the rebels previously threatened to kill the mayor and the methodology of the abduction and “motivations to kill him” point to their being responsible. Coloma said Otaza had been “an invaluable partner for peace in the region” and that the late mayor’s programs for former rebels “to lead dignified lives as part of mainstream society have encouraged many insurgents to lay down their arms.” The rebels gave no immediate statement. In the past they have described Otaza as a fascist “accountable for the torture, intimidation, and reign of terror perpetrated by the enemy.” They have accused the mayor and provincial officials of allowing the exploitation of ancestral tribal lands while leaving communities in poverty. Peace talks to end the Maoist rebellion that is one of Asia’s longest-running insurgencies have been stalled since 2011.