6 BIFF members yield to 1st Mechanized Brigade
Mindanao Peace Process • 14:30 PM Wed May 5, 2021
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By:
John M. Unson
The six former BIFF members are now in the custody of the 1st Mechanized Brigade. (From 6th ID)
MAGUINDANAO – Six more members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered to the military Tuesday.
The six men, names withheld pending relocation to safe areas, pledged allegiance to the government after renouncing their membership with the BIFF at the headquarters of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Brigade in Barangay Kamasi in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.
Major Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the 6th Infantry Division, said the group yielded through the efforts of local officials in Maguindanao’s Sultan sa Barongis and Datu Abdullah Sangki towns and Col. Pedro Balisi, Jr., the commanding officer of of the 1st Mechanized Brigade.
“They decided to surrender when they learned that those who returned to the fold of law ahead of them are now being reintegrated into mainstream society by the government," Uy said.
More than 300 BIFF gunmen have surrendered in batches to units of 6th ID since 2017.
The group, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is tagged in all deadly bombings in central Mindanao since 2014.
It has also been trying to sabotage the peace overture between Malacañang and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, whose chairman, Ahod Ebrahim, is now an appointed chief minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
More than 40 BIFF bandits surrendered to the 6th ID through the efforts of Uy and local government units in Maguindanao since January.