Hidden combat weapons, IEDs found in two Region 12 towns

COTABATO CITY — Soldiers seized two assault rifles, grenade and rocket launchers, and seven homemade bombs remotely detonated via mobile phones during separate operations in South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces in Region 12 over two days.

Patrolling personnel of the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion first found on Monday, July 28, inside a residential compound in Barangay Lagandang in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat two .50 caliber bolt-action sniper rifles, an M79 grenade launcher, three rocket launchers and a B40 anti-tank rocket.  

The weapons were placed inside a sack, hidden near an abandoned house in the area, according to the commanding officer of the 7th IB, Lt. Col. Tristan Rey Vallescas. 

Brig. Gen. Michael Santos, commander of the Army’s 603rd Infantry Brigade, told reporters on Wednesday, July 30, that soldiers searched the compound after villagers had reported that members of a local terror group had left the sniper rifles, grenade and rocket launchers and an anti-tank rocket inside.

Santos said personnel of the 105th Infantry Battalion confiscated on Tuesday an M14 assault rifle, an M79 grenade launcher and seven large improvised explosive devices piled in a shallow pit in Barangay Lacunon in T’boli town in South Cotabato that they managed to locate with the help of residents. 

The commanding officer of the 105th IB, Lt. Col. Erikzen Dacoco, had reported to Santos and Major Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said that it was members of the indigenous T’boli community in T’boli, an upland town in South Cotabato, who led them to the exact location of the buried M14 rifle, M79 grenade launcher and seven IEDs.

Local executives had told reporters that it was a group of New People’s Army guerrillas that hid the weapons in the pit that they covered with slabs of wood and dried grasses.