11 NPA guerillas surrender in South Cotabato
SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines — Eleven more New People’s Army guerillas surrendered in Santo Niño town in South Cotabato Sunday and together renounced their membership with the group in the presence of local officials.
Arnel Sabarillo, Hina Kim Belet, Bong Pendatun, John-John Agang, Marlon Yto, Edgar Permalino, Lemuel Magudinog, Ramil Bautista, Dionedes Alberto, Modesto Dading, and Abner Hinggilio, also turned in assorted firearms and components for improvised explosive devices.
They yielded to local officials and representatives from the Santo Niño municipal police station and the South Cotabato provincial police office.
Brig. Gen. Alfred Corpus, director of the Police Regional Office-12, said Monday the 11 NPAs have pledged allegiance to the government after turning over their firearms during a simple surrender rite at Barangay Manuel Roxas in Santo Niño, South Cotabato.
Corpus said municipal and provincial officials helped in convincing the 11 rebels to the fold of law.
Last Friday, the Communist Party of the Philippines said its guerillas have been directed to "transition from an active defense to an offensive posture" as the ceasefire with the government ended.
The Philippine government refused to extend the ceasefire, which was declared last March 16, after President Rodrigo Duterte said there will be no more peace talks with the rebels. —with report from Artemio Dumlao
The government and National Democratic Front peace panels agree in the continuation of unilateral indefinite ceasefires, while noting issues and concerns, according to their joint statement after the third round of formal talks held in Rome.
The request of the communist side for government to grant amnesty to political prisoners will be studied. The government, however, committed to faclitate the release of three remaining NDFP consultants Eduardo Sarmiento, Emeterio Antalan and Leopoldo Caloza "through presidential clemency and other legal modes."
The parties agree to meet for the fourth round of talks in Oslo, Norway in April.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines will not recommend a ceasefire with the New People's Army over the Christmas season saying the rebels have shown "incapacity for sincerity and for being unfaithful to a covenant."
It adds the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA "venture on peace talks only to give themselves the chance to regroup, refurbish, recruit new members, and recoup their losses."
Traditionally, both sides declare unilateral ceasefires over the holidays, although both sides have also accused the other of breaking it.
President Duterte says he is not ready for peace talks with communist rebels, citing reported attacks on soldiers conducting relief operations.
"There is no more peace talks to talk about. I am not and will never be ready for any round of talks," he says.
Presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. says communist rebels should no longer push for a Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms as part of peace talks.
"CASER is based on an obsolete framework and is no longer relevant since it is largely based on the pre-industrialization and pre-globalization era. It is a formula for the surrender of the national government’s integrity as well as the state’s sovereignty," Galvez says in a media statement.
Local Peace Engagements, the government term for "localized" peace talks with individual communist rebel units, is a better way to end the 51-year-old insurgency, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process says.
"Through LPEs, the government is demonstrating its strong resolve and decisiveness to put an end to the local communist armed conflict by directly addressing the roots of the armed rebellion and involving all national and local government agencies together with key stakeholders - including the rebels themselves," OPAPP says.
President Duterte says he is sending Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III to the Netherlands to talk to Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison, The STAR's Alexis Romero reports.
Bello was head of the government panel when peace talks with communist rebels, represented in talks by the National Democratic Front, were ongoing.
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