DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 11, 2013) – Two communist rebels have abandoned their unit and surrendered to the military in the southern Philippines, officials said Sunday.
Officials said the duo – Bryan Corminal and Jonathan Arguelles – surrendered to the Army’s 42nd Reconnaissance Company under the 4th Infantry Division in the village of Sico-sico in Surigao del Norte’s Gugaquit town.
They also led troops near a riverbank where they hid their weapons – 2 M16 and 2 Ak47 automatic rifles – which they took from the New People’s Army.
Corminal and Arguelles said that they could no longer bear the hardship running away from government forces and wanted to live peacefully with their respective families.
“The firearms of Corminal and Arguelles will help them start anew through the AFP Guns for Peace Program. We will ensure that what is due for them will be provided including the livelihood package from the Office of Presidential Adviser on Peace Process,” Lieutenant General Ricardo Rainier Cruz, chief of the Eastern Mindanao Command, said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
“We are continually inviting all NPA members to lay down their arms. It is obvious now how they have suffered and experience hardship from their leaders and the rotten communist ideology. We are encouraging everyone to facilitate and assist the surrender of our brothers who are still in the mountains because it is only through “bayanihan” that we can achieve lasting peace,” Cruz added.
The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines which is fighting for decades for the establishment of a separate state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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