3 Kalinga communist rebels surrender

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya , Philippines  – Three communist rebels operating in Kalinga, including the armed group’s medical officer, have surrendered to the Army earlier this week amid the government’s intensified retrieval operations in that typhoon Pepeng-hit northern Cordillera province.  

Army Lt. Col. Antonio Lastimado, chief of the 21st Infantry Battalion, in his report to Major Gen. Nestor Ochoa of the Isabela-based Army’s 5th Infantry Divison, the returnees were identified as Carmen Bonggay, 44; Mila Magayam, 39, both of Conner, Apayao; and Jembol Dalog, 22, of Sitio Batong Buhay, Barangay Balatoc, Pasil, Kalinga.

Reports said the three former New People’s Army militants also yielded their firearms, including a Thompson sub-machine gun with magazines, to elements of the Army and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency in the morning of Oct. 13 (height of Army-led retrieval and relief operations for the typhoon victims in Kalinga). 

The Army said Magayam, alias Ka Sarda, had been the medical officer of the Sandatahang Yunit Pampropaganda-1 of the Cagayan Valley Regional Party Committee-Northern Front, where Dalog or Ka Ugnay or Deo and Bonggay or Ka Minda also formerly belong.

“They opted to return to the mainstream society (amid their) hardships and insecurities (of) staying with the (Communist group) which is now losing ground in the countryside,” said Ochoa, adding that benefits and other assistance under the government’s Social Integration Program are now being readied for them “to start a new life with their families.” 

Additionally, the Army have recovered several high-powered firearms at an abandoned Communist camp in remote Mount Bumalayak, Barangay Talampac in Lacub, Abra while government troopers were conducting patrol operations in the area last week, belated reports said.

The recovered high powered firearms were two M14 rifles, an M14 rifle barrel and receiver group with trigger assembly, an M14 barrel and receiver group; an M1 Garand barrel receiver group with operating rod and a Browning shotgun.

Also recovered include a handheld radio, generator, two radio transceivers, a microphone transceiver, a television antenna, a bag of medical and dental paraphernalia and two computer printers as well as books and manuals, including documents and maps.   – Charlie Lagasca