12 Filipinos Linked to Kidnaping of Californian Surrender

Leaders of a breakaway Marxist group linked to the kidnaping of a California businessman last year have surrendered to authorities, police announced today.

Twelve members of the Red Scorpion Group were presented to reporters at national police headquarters. The Red Scorpions claimed responsibility for the January, 1992, abduction of Michael Barnes of Long Beach.

At the time, Barnes served as vice president of Philippine Geothermal Inc., a joint venture of Unocal. He was freed two months later in police raids during which 13 people were killed.

During a press conference, one of the 12, Ferdinand Pangan, admitted he was involved in the Barnes kidnaping.

Acting National Police Chief Raul Imperial said the 12, who surrendered separately in recent days, were former members of the Alex Boncayao Brigade, an assassination squad of the Communist New People’s Army.

Imperial said the Red Scorpions left the mainstream Marxist movement because they felt their group “is a distinct political or revolutionary organization committed to societal change.”

The New People’s Army, armed wing of the Philippine Communist Party, has been waging a 24-year rebellion to set up a Marxist state. But the Communist movement has been badly split by a power struggle between classical rural Maoists and those who want to take the insurgency into the cities.

Dissidents from the latter faction organized the Red Scorpions in late 1991, and the Barnes’ kidnaping was the first operation they openly acknowledged.