3 NPA ‘tax collectors’ surrender in Sultan Kudarat

COTABATO CITY — Three more members of the New People’s Army (NPA) from a group collecting “revolutionary tax” from hapless farmers in Sultan Kudarat province pledged allegiance to the government last weekend.

The 6^th Infantry Division (ID) did not immediately announce their surrender to give local officials in Sultan Kudarat’s adjoining Lebak and Kalamansig towns enough time to relocate the three of them, Sitong Aldew Kandason and his wife, Mahay Asil Kandason, and Samson Sayno Canaway, to areas far from reach of their former companions.

Major Gen. Antonio G. Nafarrete, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division and acting Western Mindanao Command chief, told reporters on Tuesday that the three of them first turned in their assault rifles before they renounced their membership with the NPA at the headquarters of the 37^th Infantry Battalion (IB) in Barangay Tibpuan in Lebak, Sultan Kudarat.

Mr. Nafarrete said the three rebels surrendered through the intercession of local executives in Lebak and Kalamansig, the commanding officer of the 37th IB, Lt. Col. Christopher M. Capuyan, and his immediate superior, Brig. Gen. Michael A. Santos of the 603rd Infantry Brigade.

Their surrender to the 37^th IB has brought to 412 the number of NPA members who have surrendered, in batches, since early 2022, to units of the 6^th ID in Central Mindanao. — John Felix M. Unson