Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 16) — The Supreme Court has allowed a former top leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines to post bail after he was arrested in February for murder charges.
The court’s third division ordered the release of Rodolfo “Commander Bilog” Salas, the former chairman of the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, once he posts a ₱200,000 bond.
Salas’ son, Jody, earlier filed a habeas corpus petition before the Supreme Court for the freedom of the 72-year-old former communist leader.
The younger Salas contended in his petition that his father’s arrest is illegal as it violated his rights to due process and against double jeopardy.
He said his father could no longer be charged with murder as this offense is deemed absorbed into the rebellion charge he had been convicted of on May 10, 1991.
The older Salas was charged along with 37 others, including CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison, with 29 counts of murder for their purported involvement in a mass killing in Inopacan, Leyte in 1985.
In 2006, soldiers reportedly discovered a mass grave in Inopacan town. It was said to contain skeletal remains supposedly of communist rebels “purged” by their colleagues in 1985 on suspicion they were military informants.
