BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Army commands in the Visayas have confirmed the death of top Negros Communist Rogelio Posadas alias Ka Putin after a running gunbattle that started early in the morning of 18 April 2023 from Isabela town and ended in a third gunbattle in a mountain community of neighboring Binalbagan.
The military had been claiming Posadas is the secretary of the unified regional committee for the islands of Negros, Cebu, Bohol, and Siquijor and is respinsible for a strung of crimes from murder to extortion, abduction and arson, among others
Major General Marion Sison, commander of the Army’s Third Infantry Division based in Panay island, confirmed to DNX the death of Posadas when sought out for comment on information received by DNX last night that Posadas was the dead rebel left behind by his comrades in Cabite, an upland community in the village of Santol in Binalbagan.
The death of Posadas came after a 303rd Brigade-led operation this week that saw three maneuver battalions – the 79th, 62nd, and the 94th – deploying combat units to run after what commanders described as “remnants” of New People’s Army guerrilla fronts previously described as “severely weakened.”
Camp Gerona also confirmed today the death of Posadas whose body at the Soledad Funeral Homes in Binalbagan was identified by former rebels to be his.
The CPP, had claimed days ago in its website that Posadas and several of his comrades were “abducted.”
Leadership vacuum
Intelligence and underground sources said the death of Posadas will lead to the crippling of the CPP in the island amid its continuing combat losses and shrinking mass base that appear to have intensified under the term of President Duterte who, ironically, the CPP supported.
Former Communist cadres told DNX Posadas was deployed to Negros in 2016 based on the decision of the 7th Plenum of the CPP Central Committee to replace an ailing Frank Fernandez, the former priest who used to head the CPP in the island.
Posadas was originally from Mindanao region and was a seminarian in Cebu when he was recruited by the CPP.
He rose through the Party ranks and became deputy secretary of the Church Sector or CHS Bureau in Cebu island.
The CHS Bureau is a unit of the CPP that is composed of priests or laymen handling recruitment among Churchpeople and usually composed of active priests or laymen in various denominations but mostly in the Roman Catholic church.
