File photo of the New People’s Army (NPA) Guerilla Front 21 with their high powered firearms and the communist flag along the mountains of Marihatag town in Surigao del Sur. PHOTO BY ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
LUCENA CITY, Philippines – At least a dozen New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Southern Tagalog have surrendered to government authorities over the last week, a Philippine Army regional spokesman said Thursday.
Captain Jayrald Ternio, head of the public affairs office of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, said in a press statement that four former rebels turned themselves into the government’s local negotiating team under the Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF ELCAC) in the region.
The supposed surrender happened on Wednesday in Barangay (village) Canaway in General Nakar town in Quezon province at the slope of the Sierra Madre mountain ranges.
Last Sunday (September 20), another eight former Red-fighters surrendered to government representatives in the town of Bulalacao in Oriental Mindoro, Ternio said.
The identifies of the rebels were being withheld for security reasons, the statement said.
Army soldiers also recovered one M16 rifle, one hand grenade, and an anti-personnel landmine in Barangay Magsaysay in Infanta, Quezon on Wednesday allegedly hidden by NPA rebels.
Lieutenant Colonel Jesus Diocton, commander of the Army’s 1st Infantry Battalion, said their informant from the village pointed them to the location of the weapons.
“These NPA terrorists hide their firearms and other war materials whenever they want to evade our forces and recover them once the government troops leave the area,” Diocton said.
More than 200 firearms have been turned over to the government by former rebels in the region since the implementation of the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program or E-Clip since 2016, according to Ternio.
He claimed that at least 678 former rebels across the region have returned to the folds of the law under the E-Clip program.
“The NPA forces in the region are diminishing in number and influence because of snowballing surrenders,” Ternio said in an online interview. He declined to provide numbers of still active rebels in the Southern Tagalog region.
He noted that Laguna, Cavite, Marinduque, and Romblon provinces have already been declared as “insurgency free” or areas with “Stable Internal Peace and Security” (SIPS) status.
“Most of the remaining provinces under 2nd ID are also headed to the same status pending final validation,” he said.
The Army’s 2ID covers the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) region and the island provinces of Mindoro Oriental, Mindoro Occidental, Marinduque, and Romblon.
Ternio said the rebel returnees would be subjected to reintegration protocols — medical checkups, debriefing, and enrollment under the E-Clip.
E-Clip offers free medical treatments, education, housing, and legal aid to rebels who would give up.
President Duterte created the National Task Force ELCAC through Executive Order No. 70 on December 4, 2018.
It aims to provide an efficient means to implement the “whole-of-nation approach” to achieve peace.
EO 70 taps government agencies and the private sector to bring basic services to the countryside and address the root causes of rebellion.