The Communist Party of the Philippines confirmed Thursday the deaths of its high-ranking officials Benito Tiamzon, Wilma Austria-Tiamzon, and eight others—a group the party called the Catbalogan 10—during a firefight in Samar last year.
The Tiamzon couple were convicted in 2020 for kidnapping and serious illegal detention of military officers in 1988. A manhunt was later ordered for their capture.
In a press statement, CPP said Benito and Wilma were killed alongside eight others on August 21, 2022, in Samar.
Later on Twitter, CPP spokesman Marco Valbuena said: “Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, key leaders of the CPP Central Committee, with eight others were severely tortured and subsequently murdered by their military captors, on August 21, 2022.”
Retired Major General Eduardo de Leon, who commanded the 8th Infantry Division in its operation involving unnamed “high-ranking” rebels in Samar that time, maintained it was not clear if the Tiamzons were among the casualties.
“How can they say the Tiamzon couple died in that operation? I do not know if they were included in that operation because I myself, as the commander at that time, could not confirm if the Tiamzons were there in the encounter with troops in the waters of Samar ,” De Leon told CNN Philippines’ News Night.
The National Security Council welcomed the confirmation of the Tiamzon couple’s deaths but maintained that it stands by the official reports of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
“As is their practice, the terrorists’ propaganda machinery has concocted and fabricated an elaborate story which even implicates the United States in their deaths in order to squeeze whatever propaganda value they can muster from their deaths,” National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said.
At the time, Benito, 71, served as the group’s executive committee chairperson, while his wife, Wilma, 70, was the CPP’s secretary general.
“They were travelling with Ka Divino (Joel Arceo), a subregional secretary in Eastern Visayas, along with Ka Yen, Ka Jaja, Ka Matt, Ka Ash, Ka Delfin, Ka Lupe, Ka Butig (Catbalogan 10), who all belonged to the guerrilla force of the central headquarters,” the statement read.
In line with this, the CPP Central Committee has ordered its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), to “stand in formation and silently perform a 21-gun salute” in honor of the Tiamzons on Monday, April 24.
The date coincides with the 50th anniversary of National Democratic Front of the Philippines, of which the Tiamzons were consultants.
Initial reports from security authorities last August said suspected insurgents that reportedly included VIPs were engaged in a firefight at sea with government forces off the coast of Catbalogan when their boat exploded.
CPP said the Tiamzon group was traveling in two vehicles along the national highway in Catbalogan, Samar when they were flagged down around 12 to 1 p.m, After that the CPP lost any form of communication with the group.
CPP said based on the information they gathered from sources they did not identify, the Tiamzon couple and their party were allegedly tortured with their faces and bodies badly beaten by hard objects.
CPP disputed the claim of the Armed Forces of the Philippines the group died in a boat explosion while in an encounter against military forces and called the incident a mere “drama” created by the AFP.
The CPP statement said: “The claimed mid-sea firefight and explosion were all a drama hatched by the AFP and its US military advisers, to hide all evidence of the ignominy of their fascist crime.
“In truth, the already lifeless bodies of the Tiamzons and their group were dumped on a motorboat filled with explosives, and tugged from Catbalogan midway towards Taranganan island before it was detonated.
“Only eight bodies were subsequently retrieved by the military.”
In September last year, then AFP chief of staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro said the services services of the police crime scene investigators were tapped to gather DNA samples and come up with a comparison.
“We are still waiting for the result of the DNA test conducted by the PNP,” Bacarro said at that time.
Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, who founded the CPP in 1968, also died in The Netherlands last December.
“The Communist Party of the Philippines has lost its relevance,” AFP spokesman Col. Medel Aguilar said in a statement in December when the CPP marked its 54th anniversary.