Mindanao Leaders Welcome New Army, AFP Chiefs

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local executives were elated with the separate appointments of two former top officials of the 6th Infantry Division as commander of the Philippine Army and chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Assistant Defense Secretary Arsenio Andolong, also spokesperson of the Department of National Defense, was quoted in radio reports on Tuesday, July 21, as saying that Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, shall take over the leadership of the Philippine Army, whose commander, Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, will assume as AFP chief of staff, replacing the retired Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. The designation of Gumiran and Nafarrete as Philippine Army commander and AFP chief of staff, respectively, is effective July 21, according to Andolong. Gumiran had a long stint as Army officer in Central Mindanao, where he had led a battalion and became commander of the 6th ID's 602nd Infantry Brigade and, subsequently, as 6th ID commander for more than one year. While at 6th ID, Gumiran, his subordinate-officers in its units, local executives and traditional Moro datus together secured, via backchannel talks, the surrender, in batches, of 1,307 members of the now defunct Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and Dawlah Islamiya terror groups, all of them reintroduced to the local communities with the help of different ministries in the Bangsamoro government and line agencies in Region 12. Nafarrete also served as commander of the 6th ID ahead of Gumiran. It was when Nafarrete was at the helm of the 6th ID that the Small Arms and Light Weapons Management Program of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity and the division took off. The program is a regional disarmament thrust complementing the national government’s peace process with southern Moro communities. South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr., chairperson of the multi-sector Regional Peace and Order Council 12, said on Tuesday that they are glad with the appointment of Gumiran as Philippine Army commander and Nafarrete as AFP chief of staff. “We have witnessed how both of them worked hard as commanders, one after another, of the 6th Infantry Division during which we have seen the surrender of so many local terrorists to units of the division and the regional police offices in Region 12 and in the Bangsamoro region. We are happy they got appointed to those two high positions in the military,” Tamayo said. Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Talino-Mendoza said she and her constituent-local executives are grateful to President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. for giving Gumiran and Nafarette imprimatur to become Philippine Army Commander and AFP chief of staff, respectively. “We in Cotabato province will support their peacebuilding activities related to the Mindanao peace process,” Ms. Taliño Mendoza said. Maguindanao del Norte Vice Gov. Marshall Sinsuat said he and members of the provincial board, which he leads as chairperson, can even pass a resolution expressing support for Gumiran's leadership of the Philippine Army and Nafarrete's being AFP chief of staff. A known peace activist, the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., who is health minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said both officials, while serving as commanders of 6th ID, helped them push forward the community service programs of the Ministry of Health-BARMM for former violent religious extremists who have returned to the fold of law and the Moro communities in far-flung areas.