Joint police and military operatives arrested 43 suspected members of the New People’s Army (NPA), in what a military official said to be the biggest number of communist rebels they arrested in their anti-insurgency operations, when they swooped down on their alleged training camp in Morong, Rizal, Saturday morning.

Lieutenant Colonel Noel Detoyato, civil military operations officer of the 2nd Infantry Division, said the 43 suspected rebels were on the process of conducting training on how to make improvised explosive devices when they were collared in a house in Barangay Maybangcal, Morong town at around 6 a.m. Saturday.

“I have never seen such a big group arrested. This is the biggest arrest that the military made in the history as far as I know,” said Detoyato.

“It also appears that almost half of them are ranking members of the NPA, some of them are assigned in the Finance unit of the group. When you are assigned in that unit in the NPA, that means that you are a ranking member,” he added.

The official said the operation stemmed from a report of the existence of a training camp in the area which is being frequented by several groups of people, prompting them to map out raid plans with the local police.

Armed with a search warrant issued by a local court, policemen and soldiers raided the house and arrested 17 men and 26 women which they said to be members of the national, regional, and provincial units of the NPA.

Seized were a .45 caliber pistol, a .38 caliber revolver, three grenades a canister, 10x12 improvised landmine, two pieces of improvised claymore mines, two kilos of ammonium nitrate, seven blasting caps, 36 pieces of improvised explosive sticks, cellular phones and backpacks.

“The police has no big facility so those arrested are under military custody, but the police are the ones conducting the investigation,” said Detoyato.

He added that additional charges will be slapped against them in connection with the explosive materials seized from them as well as the two handguns confiscated.