Communist rebels surrender, want to be AFP soldiers instead

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines - Three armed-to-the-teeth New People's Army rebels from Mt. Province and Kalinga gave up to authorities recently and soon might be becoming government troopers when integrated to the Philippine Army.

This hints that more and more rebels are going down the hills and leaving the communist movement, the military said, and are dreaming to become soldiers instead.

Giving up with their high-powered firearms and ammunitions, the NPA rebels who came from Mt. Province and Kalinga were named by Col. Loreto Magundayao, spokesperson of the Isabela-based 5th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army as Menard Cadap Habit alias Ka Mena, Abraham Caoili Anhibey alias Ka Abe or Max and and Pableto Habinia alias Ka Junjun.

Habit and Anhibey gave up with their two M16 assault rifles to the Philippine Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion last February in Bontoc, Mt. Province while Habinia surrendered to the 5th CMO battalion with his two M16 rifles, one (1) cal. 30 Springfield (Japanese rifle), one (1) cal. 5.56 homemade rifle and one (1) cal.38 revolver.

Magundayao said he personally fetched Habinia in upper Kalinga and turned him over to the  Kalinga based 501st Infantry Brigade at Tabuk City. 

Habit, 22, and a native of Barangay Monamon Nortein Bauko, Mt. Province was a courier of the Communist Party of the Philippines- NPA’s Kilusang Larangan Guerilla (KLG) Marco while Anhibey, 26, single, was a 2nd year Bachelor of Arts in Political Science student at the Ifugao State University, Lamut, Ifugao when recruited to become a full time member and a contact/courier of the NPA in Bauko and Sabangan, both of Mt Province and the tri-boundaries of Ifugao, Mt. Province and Benguet.

Habinia, according to Magundayao was “in a lie-low status” to the CPP-NPA but was serving as courier or “pasabilis” and recruiter of the NPA-Kalinga.  He was reportedly with the underground movement from 1984 to 1988.

The trio opted to give up on the communist movement, Magundayao said, because they wanted to avail the AFP Transitional Integration Program for them to be integrated into the Regular Force, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). 

Respecting this, Magundayao said, “they will have to undergo the integration process of the AFP.”

The trio reportedly said “staying in the underground movement with causeless ideology had destroyed their future and ruined their peaceful lives as law abiding Filipino citizens."