Another Balweg kin surrenders

MANILA, Philippines – The 26-year-old daughter-in-law of captured Abra rebel leader Jovencio Balweg surrendered to the Cordillera police last Tuesday.

Bernardine Daguio, alias Chiway, gave herself up to Senior Superintendent Alex Pumecha, Cordillera police intelligence chief.

Daguio, who hails from Barangay Uma, Lubuagan, Kalinga, joined her husband, Jovencio Jr., and his parents, Balweg Sr. and Carmen, in the custody of Chief Superintendent Orlando Pestano, Cordillera police director.

Pestano said Daguio is the education officer of the Kilusang Laragan Guerrilla North which operates in the hinterlands of Lacub and Malibcong towns in Abra.

Daguio, according to Pestano, was a former student activist who joined the underground movement after graduation in 2004.

However, she decided to lie low in November 2006 after getting pregnant by Jovencio Jr.

Following the arrest of the elder Balweg last May 18 and the subsequent surrender of Carmen and her husband, Daguio decided to join them for the sake of her child.

Pestano vowed that the Cordillera police would continuously strengthen its campaign against insurgency until all rebels in the region would return to mainstream society and lead peaceful lives rather than taking arms against the government.

But Martin Montana, spokesman of the New People’s Army’s Chadli Molintas Command, said authorities were “daydreaming” in saying that Balweg’s arrest dealt a huge blow to the underground movement in the Ilocos and Cordillera regions.

“This is farthest from reality,” he said, adding that rebels “are prepared (ideologically) to bear the sacrifices and losses.” – With Artemio Dumlao