Military declares Misamis Occidental free of communist rebels

Beig. Gen. Elmer Suderio, commander of the Army’s 102nd Infantry Brigade, said the last NPA presence in Misamis Occidental was in December 2023. REY R. PEROCHO, Inquirer Mindanao

TANGUB CITY, MISAMIS OCCIDENTAL – The military has declared Misamis Occidental province, a once rebel bastion, to have been freed of the presence of communist rebels.

“Misamis Occidental is insurgency free,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is commander-in-chief of the country’s armed services, declared on Friday during a multisectoral ceremony at the Tangub City Global College Sports Complex here.

The President credited the milestone to the consistency of military and community-building campaigns. He lauded the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Department of the Interior and Local Government for leading the effort.

The declaration of Misamis Occidental as insurgency free comes after its nearby provinves in the Zamboanga Peninsula, grouped as the Western Mindanao region, were declared as such last April by Maj. Gen. Gabriel Viray lll, commander of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division.

READ: Military declares Zamboanga Peninsula ‘NPA-free’

Brig. Gen. Elmer Suderio, commander of the Army’s 102nd Infantry Brigade, said the last armed presence of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) in the province was in December last year when government troops successfully dismantled their remaining stronghold.

The rebel fighters were eventually neutralized in Zamboanga del Norte in the succeeding months after that.

Suderio recalled that the NPA began to take root in the province in the early 1970s, just a few years after it was founded in Tarlac in 1969.

Although its strength peaked in the 1980s and then dwindled, it continued to “wreak havoc” in the province in the later years, “creating an environment so dire that government agencies were hesitant to reach remote areas, leaving residents without services,” Suderio explained.

Mount Malindang, which straddles most of Misamis Occidental’s 17 localities and some towns in Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga del Norte provinces, is a major bastion of the NPA, hosting its key guerrilla front “Monterosa” that produced rebel cadres deployed in other areas of Mindanao and the rest of the country.

As such, Malindang and its outlying communities were major theaters of battle in the pursuit by government forces against communist rebels.

The military documented 60 villages of the province to have once hosted NPA fighters and clashes with government troops.

Some 51 of these were eventually cleared of NPA presence as of 2020 hence were enrolled in the government’s Support to Barangay Development Program from 2021 to 2023 with 46 projects already completed, mostly in community infrastructures like water supply systems and farm-to-market roads.

With nil NPA presence around Malindang, mountain resorts and other tourism facilities sprouted, especially on the Zamboanga del Norte and Misamis Occidental sides. The Asenso Global Gardens in Barangay Hoyohoy here is one showcase of this.

Gov. Henry Oaminal acknowledged that “building peace is a shared responsibility.”

He expressed confidence that the networks of paved roads throughout the province that were built by the government through the years will help improve the economic and social condition of the rural population as well as open new business opportunities that will further cement the peace gains.