Top rebel leader, wife surrender in South Cotabato

KORONADAL CITY—A ranking New People’s Army (NPA) leader in Mindanao and his wife surrendered to the military on Monday following months of negotiations, an Army official said. Lt. Col. Benjamin Leander, 27th Infantry Battalion commander, said Noel Legazpi, known as “Ka Efren,” spokesperson for the NPA’s Far South Mindanao Regional Revolutionary Committee in the last 20 years, and his wife, Wendy, a member of the NPA medical team, turned themselves in with the help of South Cotabato Gov. Daisy Avance Fuentes.

Legazpi, 58, has been with the communist movement for 26 years. —EDWIN FERNANDEZ