2 more NPAs yield to Army in Sarangani

COTABATO CITY - Two from an extortion group of the New People’s Army, one of them a minor, surrendered to the Army in Maitum town in Sarangani province.

The duo belonged to the NPA’s self-styled Guerilla Front Musa-Far South Mindanao Region, whose senior leaders are wanted for dozens of criminal cases pending in different courts.

Major Gen. Roy Galido, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, said Thursday the two NPAs agreed to return to the fold of law through the intercession of the 38^th Infantry Battalion covering Maitum and nearby towns in Sarangani.

Galido said they turned in an M16 assault rifle and a .30 caliber M1 Garand rifle before they pledged allegiance to the government during a simple surrender rite in Maitum, witnessed by Mayor Alexander Bryan Reganit and representatives from the local police.

The 38^th IB is now coordinating with the Maitum municipal social welfare office in providing with psycho-social interventions to one of the two NPAs, a 17-year-old guerilla, who had confessed to his role in collecting “protection money” from members of the business community in different towns in Sarangani.

Galido said credit for the surrender of the two NPAs has to go to local officials in Maitum, officials of the 38^th IB and to Brig. Gen. Pedro Balisi, Jr. of the 1^st Mechanized Brigade, who cooperated in convincing both to surrender and get reintegrated into mainstream society.

Units of 6^th ID deployed in different towns in central Mindanao had secured the surrender, since January this year, of 122 NPAs via backchannel dialogues.