Special CAFGUs to secure Kidapawan

KIDAPAWAN CITY -To deter criminalities and terror attacks, a company of Special CAFGU Active Auxiliary (SCAA) is set to be established here. In fact, the training design for the recruitment of some 88 members of SCAA has already been approved during the City Peace and Order Council (CPOC) meeting held recently. Col. Elmer Alterado, commander of the 72ndIB, said the training will cost the city LGU some P1.092 million. CPOC chair and City Mayor Joseph Evangelista said the SCAA detachment will be established along the national highway, in particular at Barangay Binoligan, an area adjacent to Sitio Nazareth in Barangay Amas, Barangay Patadon, and Barangay Malinan in Kidapawan City, and nearby Barangay Estado in Matalam town – all considered ‘highly-problematic’ areas. He explained the Sangguniang Panglungsod has already given him an authority to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the 10thInfantry Division of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in creating the SCAA. The training, he added, will start after the MOA signing. As stipulated in the provisions of the MoU, the City LGU will shoulder the monthly allowance and uniforms of SCAA members while the AFP is mandated for the training, arming, and supervision of militiamen. Under the plan, the city government is set to allot some P3.5 million annual funds for the SCAA. Earlier, Evangelista said the SCAA creation is conceptualized due to the prevailing security situation that requires an ‘embedded’ security system in the city. Incidents of attacks led by armed Moro elements and communist guerillas have been reported in these areas. In 2014, a village guard was killed and a policeman was wounded when a group of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members attacked Sitio Nazareth in Barangay Amas. Early this year, thousands of residents in Barangay Estado in Matalam town and in Barangay Malinan, this city, evacuated to safer places when armed MILF rebels attacked their village. Deep-seated land conflict was believed behind the motives in these incidents, reports said.