Police seize 12,000 AK47 ammo from NPA in Butuan

Butuan City map

PAGADIAN ITY— Police operatives seized a cache of ammunition in a mountainous area of Butuan City on Tuesday afternoon following a tip from a villager.

a mountainous area of Butuan City on Tuesday afternoon following a tip from a villager.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Caramat Jr., Caraga police director, said troops of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion excavated four containers loaded with about 12,013 bullets for AK47 rifles in Sitio Lamusig of Barangay Tungao.

Caramat, in a statement, said the ammunition belonged to the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

The discovery of the ammunition demonstrated that the community was fed up with the activities of the guerrillas as they even revealed the locations of the ammunition cache, Caramat added.

Earlier in the morning, police arrested Noel Dawog alias Rex, 30, in Barangay Anticala.

Dawog, a resident of Barangay Basilisa, Remedios T. Romualdez town, Agusan del Norte, was the subject of an arrest warrant for multiple attempted murder issued by Butuan City Regional Trial Court Branch 3. The court has set P150,000 bail for his temporary freedom.

Dawog is accused of attacking Army troopers in Sitio Mandalayag, Barangay Pianing, Butuan City, last September 13, 2019.

In Zamboanga del Sur, Sammy Pardillo alias Andoy, whom the military said is the guerrilla front commander of the NPA in the province, surrendered to the Army’s 53rd Infantry Battalion on Monday. Pardillo is said to be a member of the executive committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee.

With Andoy are four of his former comrades: Rogene Maghinay alias Marlon, Reno Andang alias Poloy, Florencio Anguilay Jr. alias Cardo, and Jongie Laurete, also alias Cardo.

Pardillo said he was motivated to surrender after seeing the government’s program to transfer former rebels into productive citizens of their communities.

Maj. Gen. Generoso Ponio, commander of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, said that the government will always welcome NPA members who choose to lay down their arms and go back to the folds of the law.

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