6th ID expecting surrender of more NPAs soon

COTABATO CITY - The military is expecting the surrender of no fewer than 50 more ranking New People’s Army guerillas from across central Mindanao in the next five months. 

Officials of units of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division told reporters Wednesday more NPAs have sent them surrender feelers in the past two weeks via local executives in upland towns. 

The latest to surrender to 6^th ID was a courier of extortion letters, demanding “protection money” from traders in Sultan Kudarat province, who agreed to return to the fold of law through the intercession of the Army’s 5^th Special Forces Battalion and the 1^st Mechanized Brigade.

The NPA member, whose identity was withheld pending his relocation to a safe area, surrendered two firearms, one fitted with a launcher for a 40 millimeter grenade projectile, before he renounced his membership with the NPA during a simple rite at Barangay Butril in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat early this week.  

The NPA has a reputation for attacking members who have returned to the fold of law.  

“We are counting on the support of local government units in securing the surrender of more members of this communist terrorist group,” Major Gen. Alex Rillera, 6^th ID’s commander, told reporters Wednesday.

More than 200 NPAs have surrendered in the past 12 months to units of 6^th ID in central Mindanao’s Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato and South Cotabato provinces.

Five of them, Boman Sanong, Roderick Dulonan, Rosita Ma and her siblings Jericho and Jerry, all officials of different units under the NPA’s self-styled Front Southern Mindanao Region, turned themselves in early this month to the 37^th Infantry Battalion at Barangay Tibpuan in Lebak town in Sultan Kudarat.

Rillera said the local government units of the neighboring Lebak and Kalamansig towns in Sultan Kudarat are helping the 603^rd Infantry Brigade and the 6^th ID reintroduce the five NPA officials to mainstream society.