Oldest CPLA integree wants to fight Sayyaf

CAMP MELCHOR DE LA CRUZ, Gamu, Isabela — He may be the oldest former rifleman of the defunct Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) but this 52-year-old new Army integree wants to be deployed in Abu Sayyaf-infested areas in Mindanao to test the mettle of the outlawed group in combat.

Private Macad Agustin, one of the 264 former CPLA rebels who were officially integrated into the Armed Forces recently after completing six-month training here, said he wants to help restore peace and order in the country by crushing lawless elements like the Abu Sayyaf.

"Anyway, we are used to the same type of jungle-like terrain similar to where the Abu Sayyaf is operating," he said in the vernacular.

Disgruntled over the Marcos dictatorship, Macad, a native of Tinglayan, Kalinga, joined the CPLA in 1982. He said priest-turned-rebel Conrado Balweg, the late founder of the CPLA, personally recruited him to join the group, which then had only a few hundreds of members.

When the CPLA split into three factions, Macad broke away from the mainstream CPLA and joined the breakaway group of James Sawatang. Another faction was led by Mailed Molina, now the mayor of Bucloc, Abra.

"I am old now but I feel I’m still capable of facing these bandits (Abu Sayyaf). We have to end their existence," Macad said. — Charlie Lagasca