Manila: Security forces arrested a top female communist leader in Panay. Authorities said the capture is a serious blow to the 46-year-old insurgency movement.

Maria Concepcion “Concha” Araneta-Bocalla, 64, was arrested by a joint police and military raiding team on Saturday morning inside a house she was renting in Iloilo province’s Molo district, Lt. Col. Noel Detoyato, armed forces public affairs office chief, said. Arrested with her were her nephew Joseph Cariaga and househelp Annilyn Soldevilla.

According to Detoyato, Araneta-Bocalla heads the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-New Peoples’ Army (NPA) organ in the island of Panay.

She was arrested on the basis of a warrant issued against her by the Regional Trial Court of Kalibo, Aklan, for murder and for rebellion by a court in the province of Antique.

The government had earlier put up a P7.8 million (Dh627,305) prize for her capture.

Reports said Araneta-Bocalla was among the first members of the CPP-NPA when it was established in the late 1960s.

She was formerly married to a local politician, ex-Iloilo provincial board member Pablito Araneta.

The two later they separated, and she became common law wife to a top CPP-NPA leader, Reynaldo Bocalla.

Detoyato said that Araneta-Bocalla’s capture dealt a serious setback to CPP-NPA operations in Panay. Seized from her are documents on the insurgency movement, electronic data storage devices, a computer as well as two handguns.

Once a hotbed of communist insurgency, Panay in recent years had experienced dwindling rebel operations except in the mountain areas of the town of Tapaz and other areas in the province of Capiz.

During the administration of President Joseph Estrada, a CPP-NPA splinter group that primarily operates in the Panay-Negros island area — the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade — had signed a peace agreement with the government.

The arrest of Araneta-Bocalla is the latest in the string of captures and killings in the insurgency movement.

Last June 28, Leoncio Pitao, or “Commander Parago,” was killed in an encounter with government forces in Davao City’s remote Paquibato district.

Parago headed the NPA’s Pulang Bagani Command, the rebel movement’s Southern Mindanao main guerrilla unit.

In March 22, 2014, security forces arrested the head of the CPP, Benito Tiamzon, and his wife, Wilma, in Cebu.

The military said Benito is the chair of the CPP, while his wife is the secretary-general of the underground movement.