Rebel group in Cordillera continues to surrender weapons to gov't

LA TRINIDIAD, Benguet  --  A total of 16 dozen  guns held by a faction of former members of a splinter group of the New People's Army were surrendered to the government.

The Cordillera People's Liberation Army (CPLA) turned over to the Cordillera police  203 firearms.

The CPLA members have been surrendering their firearms to the government as mandated under the  Memorandum of Agreement between the Government represented by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and members of a faction of the Cordillera Bodong Administration (CBA) and CPLA.

The other year,  a closure agreement with government came with the CPLA’s “Final Disposition of Arms and Forces” and its transformation into a potent socio-economic unarmed force.

A total of 442 firearms of the CPLA had been inventoried of which only 203 were accounted; 22 were initially surrendered during the inventory rounds, 55 were turned over during the oath-taking of the post-CPLA group -- Cordillera Forum and Peace Development (CFPD), nine in Abra, 16 in Apayao, 13 in Benguet, 18 in Ifugao, 21 in Kalinga and 49 in Mt. Province, the Cordillera police said. - Artemio A. Dumlao