6th ID personnel destroy seized unlicensed firearms

MAGUINDANAO - The military on Wednesday destroyed hundreds of unlicensed firearms collected in recent months under a decommissioning program meant to boost the southern Mindanao peace process.The symbolic disposal of the seized firearms in Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao was led by Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division, Lt. Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of the Western Mindanao Commandand Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.The event capped off Wednesday’s commemoration of the 31stFounding Anniversary of 6thID, which covers Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces and several towns in Lanao del Sur.The division has jurisdiction over Army brigades and battalions deployed in bastions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and in towns where big clans are known for stockpiling firearms both as status symbol and protection from adversaries.Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, born in nearby Midsayap, North Cotabato and raised in Parang town in Maguindanao, was keynote speaker in the event.Among the firearms that the 6thID destroyed on Wednesday inside Camp Siongco using a road roller were crew-served machineguns and launchers for 60 and 81 millimeter mortars and B-40 anti-tank rockets.Dela Vega, who has ministerial control over 6thID, said it was for the support of local officials in central Mindanao that the military achieved considerable feats in the implementation of the loose firearm reduction campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte in the region.Dela Vega said the provincial peace and order council in Maguindanao, chaired by Mangudadatu, and his younger sibling, Freddie, who is mayor of Mangudadatu town and president of the league of mayors in the province, were instrumental in the collection of the unlicensed firearms. Many of the firearms disposed today using a road roller were surrendered by feuding clans reconciled by the provincial government of Maguindanao, Dela Vega told reporters.Dela Vega said the 6thID and the Maguindanao Task Force Reconciliation and Unification, operating under the ministerial control of Mangudadatu, now a now third-termer provincial governor, jointly settled more than a hundred deadly clan wars in the province since 2013. These continuing security efforts will surely bring in improvements in the local economy and hasten the attainment of the peace and security goals of the MILF and Malacañang, Dela Vega said.