BAGUIO (Philippines) - A COMMUNIST guerrilla commander who had his brother assassinated for giving up their armed rebellion has been arrested in the Philippines, police said on Tuesday.

Jovencio Balweg and his wife Carmen, a fellow leader of their group in the northern Philippines, were arrested on Monday in the mountain resort of Baguio, according to Chief Superintendent Orlando Pestano.

Balweg, now 58, had a one-million-peso (S$31,000) bounty on his head for several murders.

Among the alleged victims of his New People's Army 'death squads' were his own brother, defrocked Roman Catholic priest Conrado Balweg.

He joined the movement with his brother but was assassinated in 1999 after he split from the group and his breakaway faction signed a peace treaty with the government.

Mr Pestano said that Jovencio Balweg sits on the regional executive committee of the NPA's mother organisation, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and his wife is a top provincial commander. -- AFP