NPA's 'lookout' in bomb attacks surrenders in Sarangani

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A confessed “lookout” in bombings of buses and arson attacks by the New People’s Army surrendered in Sarangani province Thursday.

Major Alex Rellira, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said Saturday the NPA member, whom he initially identified only as Jurib for security reasons, turned himself in to the anti-terror Task Force GenSan.

The NPA has a reputation for attacking members who have surrendered to the government and their relatives.

Jurib turned in a long range bolt-action 7.62 sniper rifle before he renounced his membership with the NPA in the presence of Task Force GenSan’s commander, Army Col.Galileo Goyena Jr., and local executives during a simple surrender rite in Barangay Maribulan in Alabel town in Sarangani, not too distant from General Santos City.

Jurib had told reporters he had acted as a lookout in the NPA’s burning in the adjoining Sarangani, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces of heavy equipment of construction firms whose owners had refused to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.   

He had also confessed to having done the same while companions brought improvised explosive devices in buses that the NPA had bombed for the same reason.

Goyena said Junib belonged to the NPA’s now moribund Guerilla Front 75-Far South Mindanao Region.

The group had lost more than 50 members in clashes in central Mindanao with police and military units, according to officials of the Police Regional Office-12 and Army brigade commander under 6th ID.

No fewer than 300 NPAs had surrendered in batches to PRO-12 and different units of 6th ID since January 2022.