Bomb-maker surrenders from NPA’s Bukidnon group

COTABATO CITY— Another member of the New People’s Army, trained in the fabrication of powerful improvised explosive devices, surrendered to the military in Bukidnon province, the third in just six days.

Tani Banayao Mantawil, who had admitted to reporters that he forcibly collected revolutionary taxes from villagers in remote towns of Bukidnon on the orders of commanders from the NPA's self-styled Guerilla Front 55-South Mindanao Regional Command, surrendered to the 89th Infantry Battalion on Tuesday, November 5.

Major Gen. Allan Hambala, commander of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, told reporters on Friday that Mantawil, who belongs to an indigenous tribe, first surrendered an M16 rifle and a vintage .30 caliber Carbine rifle before he renounced his membership with the NPA in the presence of officials of the 89th IB last Tuesday in Barangay Panganan in Kitaotao, Bukidnon.

Hambala said Mantawil agreed to return to the fold of law and avail of the government’s reconciliation program for communist insurgents through the backchannel intercession of the commanding officer of the 89th IB, Lt. Col. Antonio Bulao, and his immediate superior, Brig. Gen. Marion Angcao of the 1003rd Infantry Brigade.

Mantawil, an expert in assembling bombs using ammonium nitrate as blasting powder and triggering devices that can be activated remotely via mobile phones, said he chose to surrender to the 89th Infantry Battalion because the NPA had been weakened by the surrender of hundreds of its members across various provinces in Mindanao over the past three months.

Two other NPA guerillas, Ronie Aryan Bagubay and Loloy Abaro Puklawan, who both belonged to a group that extorted “protection money” from business establishments in upland towns in Bukidnon periodically, surrendered to officials of the 89th IB just last weekend, turned in their firearms and pledged allegiance to the government.