PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 2, 2012) – A communist rebel, disgruntled by hardships and fighting in Zamboanga del Sur province, has surrendered to the Philippine Army and is now being investigated, officials said Monday.
Capt. Alberto Caber, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, said Lito Bawan, who belongs to the Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee (WMRPC), surrendered in Pagadian City thru village leader Narcisa Puro.
The 36-year old rebel also yielded an automatic rifle issued him by the New People’s Army, which is fighting for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country.
“Accordingly, Lito was frustrated and exhausted by the hardships he had while waging a long, endless and useless war against the government. A disgruntled rebel, he decided to lay down his arms and tread the path towards peace thru the assistance of Lourdes village chairwoman Narcisa Puro,” Caber said.
He said Bawan is now in the custody of the 53th Infantry Battalion under Lt. Col. Casimero Royme Tamparong.
Maj. General Ricardo Rainier Cruz III, the division commander, said they expect more rebels to return to the folds of the law and take advantage of the government’s reconciliation program.
“The Aquino government is sincere in its efforts to bring about peace and development throughout the country by offering new opportunities for rebels to return to society and start a new life with their families. This is a new beginning for rebels and we are going to support them and together build a peaceful society,” Cruz told regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Just recently, an NPA squad leader Roger Apog, also of the WMRPC operating in the hinterlands of Zamboanga del Sur, also surrendered to the military.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Army’s 10th Infantry Division condemned the continued recruitment by rebels of children in South Cotabato province.
It said the rebels train the children and use them to fight the military. Lt. Col. Alexis Noel Bravo, commander of the 27th Infantry Battalion, said one teenager, Ronald Malley, who was allegedly an NPA member, was killed in a clash in Sultan Kudarat’s Columbio town.
“The NPA is running out of recruits that they turn to children. Minors are supposed to be in schools under the guidance of their parents. Children are not supposed to be bearing arms and fighting for things they know nothing about. I condemn the NPA for exploiting them,” Bravo said in a statement to the Mindanao Examiner.
He said the rebels violated the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law signed by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Philippine government.
But the NPA denied Bravo’s allegations and said troops killed the 16-year old Malley along with a farmer, Andy Datuwata, 24, after soldiers opened fire on a shack where the two were sleeping.
Ka Efren, a rebel spokesman said the victims were not members of the NPA as what the army told the media and branded the killings as “a sheer highfalutin and shameless fibbing of the fascist to conceal their ruthless and barbaric act towards the innocent civilians.”
He said Bravo’s unit also arrested another civilian – Tata Malley, 22 – on suspicion he was a rebel and mauled him before handing him to the local police. He said all the victims belong to the indigenous Tiruray tribe.
The rebel group condemned the killings and branded the attacks on civilians as “inhuman.” It said the soldiers also planted weapons inside the shack to make it appear that the military recovered them from the victims. (Mindanao Examiner)
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