CAGAYAN DE ORO (BukidnonNews.net/ 12 June 2025)—Five rebels of the New People’s Army stationed in Northern Mindanao surrendered during the joint operations of the army and police in the province, June 5.
Lieutenant Colonel Emilio T. Bautista, commanding officer of the 1st Special Forces Battalion under the 4th Infantry (Diamond) Division, said the group comprised both liaisons and regular members. The army and PNP’s Regional Mobile Force Battalion Region 10 also received an M16 rifle and one M203 grenade launcher.
Their report quoted the surrenderers to have said they “could no longer bear the extreme exhaustion, hunger, and their desire for safety.”
Major General Michele B. Anayron Jr., commander of 4ID, said: “We acknowledge the bravery of these surrenderers to lay down their arms and work hand in hand with us to end the insurgency…”
The NPA rebellion, formed in 1968 during the first presidential term of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., is considered Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency.
Latest attempts at peace talks in the current Marcos Jr. administration began in 2022. In November 2023, Secretary Antonio Lagdameo Jr. and Luis Jalandoni from the National Democratic Front, the group’s political arm, signed the Joint Statement for Peace in Oslo, Norway.
The communique reads: “The parties acknowledge the deep-rooted socioeconomic and political grievances and agree to come up with a framework that sets the priorities for the peace negotiation with the aim of achieving the relevant socioeconomic and political reforms towards a just and lasting peace.”
Lagdameo, whose maternal family owns the country’s largest banana plantation, tendered his courtesy resignation last month after President Marcos Jr. asked his entire Cabinet to resign.
Jalandoni, a former Catholic priest whose family owns sugarcane haciendas in Negros, died in his home in Utrecht, the Netherlands on June 7 last week. He resigned from priesthood and gave his inheritance to their landless workers before joining the underground movement during the Martial Law in 1970s.
Latest updates between the CPP-NPA-NDF and the government in September 2024 showed optimism that a peace deal will be signed soon. The military estimated the NPA to have decreased to 1,500 members.