Rebel Group Suspected in Manila Kidnaping : Philippines: Officials are convinced that feared Communist brigade is holding a businessman from California for ransom.

After weeks of confusion, knowledgeable officials here are convinced that an elite, deadly band of urban Communist guerrillas kidnaped California oil executive Michael Barnes at gunpoint in Manila’s financial district Jan. 17 and are holding him for ransom.

A reliable source said on Friday that “there’s no doubt” that members of the “Alex Boncayao Brigade,” feared for its urban “sparrow” assassination squads, studied Barnes’ movements for weeks before kidnaping him near his office. “We are sure,” the official said.

The Communist New People’s Army, blamed for killing at least 10 American officials and servicemen since 1987, has yet to acknowledge a role in the abduction. But officials suspect it is an NPA attempt to raise money, part of a campaign that also apparently includes some of the dozens of violent bank robberies and armored car holdups that have plagued Manila in recent months.

Pressed by the Philippine military and undercut by the collapse of communism around the world, more than 125 rebel leaders have surrendered or been captured in the last two years. The military claims NPA troop strength has been nearly halved from a high of about 25,000 in 1986, and insurgent-controlled areas have shrunk considerably. Rebel finances are believed in disarray as a result.

Barnes, 41, a Long Beach native, is vice president and general manager of Philippine Geothermal Inc., a subsidiary of the giant Los Angeles-based Unocal Corp., an energy resources group. PGI drills and supplies geothermal steam for Philippine-run power plants on Luzon island.

Police said Barnes may have been targeted because his company apparently refused to pay “revolutionary taxes,” a form of extortion, after receiving repeated written demands from insurgents near the Makiling geothermal plant in Laguna, a rebel-contested area south of Manila. Barnes, who has lived here since 1986, is also a vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce.

Cesar Sarino, Philippine local government secretary, said on Friday that Barnes is believed to still be in Manila but is being moved to different “safe houses” to avoid detection. Sarino and other officials said negotiations had begun with his captors. But a self-imposed government deadline for his release expired Sunday without result.

U.S. Embassy officials declined comment. Carol Scott, a Unocal spokeswoman sent here from Bangkok to monitor the case, said she could not confirm local press reports that Barnes’ office had received a ransom demand for 20 million pesos, or about $800,000.

Police said four men armed with automatic weapons forced Barnes from his Mercedes-Benz as he drove to his office early on Jan. 17 and sped away with him in a silver-gray Mitsubishi Pajero. Local police later found the car, but reportedly slept in it, covered it with fingerprints and stole the radio and spare tire.

Previous speculation on Barnes’ captors ranged from rightist rebels to one of the criminal syndicates, some led by rogue police and military officers, believed responsible for kidnaping about 50 people for ransom in the last year. Most of the victims were local Chinese-Filipino businessmen or their children. Most of the cases remain unsolved.

The Barnes case has added to growing unease among foreign residents here. At least one U.S.-based company moved its regional headquarters from Manila to Hong Kong last week because of threats. An American working here with the Asia Foundation said he was caught in a military cross-fire with the NPA while wind-surfing south of Manila in November. “I had bullets flying over my head,” he said.

U.S. Ambassador Frank Wisner has called the Barnes case a “disaster” for the government’s mostly unsuccessful efforts to attract overseas investors. “It just couldn’t have come at a worse time,” he told an American Chamber of Commerce meeting in Cebu City last month. He said the FBI and other U.S. police agencies are assisting in the investigation.

The State Department has stepped up warnings of “continuing security threats to U.S. citizens” in the Philippines, especially during the withdrawal of American forces from the naval base at Subic Bay. But tourists and businessmen unaffiliated with the U.S. government “face substantially less risk from politically motivated terrorism,” the warning added.

The U.S. Embassy announced last week that 24 Peace Corps volunteers will begin returning to the Philippines next month. All 261 volunteers in the country were hurriedly evacuated in June, 1990, after a volunteer was kidnaped by NPA rebels on Negros island. He was released unharmed after six weeks. “We wouldn’t bring them back unless we believed we could put them in places where there is no danger,” an official said Friday.