Agusan del Sur town declared peace zone, former NPA stronghold

COTABATO CITY — A town in Agusan del Sur where New People's Army guerillas once operated with impunity, killing more than a hundred villagers over two decades for refusing to provide food and money, is now a peace zone. Radio reports on Monday, August 3, stated that local executives, officials from the Army’s 10th Infantry Division and representatives from the Agusan del Sur Provincial Police Office declared the municipality of Loreto under Stable Internal Peace and Security (SIPS) during a symbolic rite on Friday, July 31. Provincial officials in Agusan del Sur, subordinate local executives in Loreto, units of the 10th ID and the Philippine National Police in the province secured the surrender of 349 NPAs from the municipality and nearby areas over the past six years through backchannel dialogues. More than 20 NPA members were killed in a series of encounters in remote areas of Loreto during the same period, as part of Army operations conducted with assistance from local residents and municipal officials. Loreto Mayor Alvin Otaza and Major Gen. Alvin Luzon, commander of the Army’s 10th ID, jointly led Friday’s declaration of the municipality as being under SIPS condition,following its full clearing from NPA presence through the joint efforts of the local government unit, the Army and the police. "This municipality, now under Stable Internal Peace and Security, is not the end of our peacekeeping mission in areas in its territory. It is something that we and counterparts in the police and local officials shall together sustain, something like a `peace dividend’ that we need to protect together,” Luzon said. The symbolic event on Friday, witnessed by community leaders from across Loreto and members of its multi-sector municipal peace and order council, was capped off with the unveiling of a SIPS marker at the local government center of the municipality by Otaza, Luzon and officials of the Loreto Municipal Police Station and their superiors in the Agusan del Sur provincial police command. Source: Philstar Nation