3 NPA members surrender in Sultan Kudarat

COTABATO CITY — Three members of the New People’s Army, from a group that extorted money from construction firms involved in infrastructure projects in Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces, surrendered on Monday.

Major Gen. Alex Rillera, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, told reporters on Tuesday that the three NPAs, whose names he withheld pending their relocation to a safe area, turned in an M60 machinegun, two M1 Garand rifles and a dozen improvised explosive devices rigged with blasting mechanisms that can be detonated from a distance using mobile phones.

The three guerillas from the NPA’s self-styled Far South Mindanao Region, whose leaders are wanted for high-profile criminal cases in different courts in Central Mindanao, pledged allegiance to the government during a surrender rite at the headquarters of the 37th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Tibpuan in Lebak, Sultan Kudarat on Monday.

All three of them had confessed to reporters their involvement in the burning, from between 2017 to 2022, of the heavy equipment of construction firms that then had infrastructure projects in hinterlands in Region 12’s adjoining Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces after owners had refused to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.

“They agreed to surrender through the efforts of the officers in our units in different municipalities in Sultan Kudarat,” Rillera said, referring to the 37th IB and the 603rd Infantry Brigade, led by Brig. Gen. Michael Santos.

Santos and Lt. Col. Christopherson Capuyan, commander of the 37th IB, said local executives in Sultan Kudarat’s adjoining Lebak, Kalamansig and Palimbang towns helped them convince the three NPAs to yield for them to be reintroduced to mainstream society with the help of different government agencies.

Up to 483 NPAs have surrendered in batches to units of 6th ID in different provinces in Region 12 since late 2022, now engaged in farming in upland areas and fishing in seaside towns as means of livelihood.