CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao – Three more IS-linked Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) yielded to the Army on Friday following military air and ground assaults on the lairs of the terrorist group in Maguindanao.
Brigadier General Cirilito Sobejana, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (6ID) commander, told reporters the three BIFF members hid on the marshland following the Army’s offensives on June 10.
According to Roy Saidali Maningkala, BIFF unit head, there were originally four of them in the group but one decided to stay behind and may follow their decision later on.
Maningkala said they hid in the bushes and thick water lilies in Liguasan Marsh, evading government troops for 13 days as the Army continued to patrol the marshland. Maningkala said the four of them survived sleepless nights and hunger until they realized it was time to give up.
“I realized I have to take care of my family first, I was touched by my son’s (mobile) phone call asking me why I was not around when he needed most my presence in school,” he told reporters in the dialect.
Maningkala said he convinced his followers to surrender because fighting alongside the armed group that pledged allegiance to the IS was a lost cause that will lead them to nowhere. Only two of his three followers agreed with him about the plan.
Maningkala and followers Junior Dia Kaul and Bin Tato Sulaiman, all residents of Sitio Tukananes, Barangay Midpandakan, General Salipada K. Pendatun, Maguindanao, sought the help of a local official who linked them to the Army’s 602nd Army Brigade in Carmen, North Cotabato.
They turned in five firearms that included one M-14 rifle, one M16 rifle, one Carbine rifle, and two homemade .50-caliber sniper rifles. Sobejana stressed that the relentless pursuit operations by ground troops in the marshland forced the three BIFF fighters to surrender.
“Obviously, they ran out of space in the marshland because the Army has penetrated this new battleground,” he said. The surrenderers are currently undergoing custodial debriefing in this camp.
The trio said they joined the BIFF group more than two years ago in exchange for a monthly incentive of PHP6,000. They accepted the offer, believing it would sustain the needs of their families, but no cash incentives were given to them.
Early this month, five BIFF members also surrendered to the military with their rifles after realizing they were fighting a futile struggle. A total of 18 BIFF militants have so far yielded to the 6ID since January this year. At least 23 BIFF were killed in the ongoing military offensives, including five Indonesians and a Singaporean, over the past two weeks.
A soldier and two civilians were also killed, including a pregnant woman who was allegedly hit by mortar fire while tending a rice field in Gen. SK Pendatun, Maguindanao at the height of the clashes with the terror group. (PNA)
