The wives of Army Sergeant Soliman Calacop and Private First Class Samuel Garay could not hide how much they missed their husbands, who were freed in Matan-ao, Davao del Sur Wednesday after three months of captivity in the hands communist rebels.
After tearfully embracing the enlisted men when they were presented and released to local government officials, both sat on their husbands’ laps and thanked the custodial unit of the New People’s Army’s Mt. Alip Command for sparing the lives of their loved ones.
The soldiers were turned over to Columbio Vice Mayor Edwin Bermudez and South Cotabato board member Romulo Solivio. Also present at the release were Davao del Sur provincial administrator and former Representative Marc Douglas Cagas, who represented his father Governor Douglas Cagas.
Calacop and Garay were conducting peace and development efforts in a remote village in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat when they were “arrested” by the NPA days after Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos, spokesman of the rebel army, announced the lifting of the unilateral ceasefire they had declared in August last year to mark the resumption of formal peace talks with government.
Ka Macario Dilaab, spokesman of the Mt. Alip Command, said the two soldiers’ release was ordered by the central committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines on humanitarian grounds.
He said the soldiers were actively engaged in gathering information on the movement of the rebels but showed remorse and were thus spared from punishment. They also vowed not to engage in “anti-people” activities, he added.
Ka Macario likewise said the release of the “prisoners of war” was an exercise of authority by the rebels’ “organs of political power.”
At the same time, Ka Macario defended their collection of revolutionary taxes, something President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly demanded they stop doing.
The NPA’s Far South Mindanao Regional Command, to which the Mt. Alip Command belongs, is among the most active communist rebel units. The Mt. Alip Command has attacked construction firms and agricultural plantations that refuse to pay revolutionary taxes.
The government and National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which represents the rebels, are scheduled to hold their fifth round of formal talks in The Netherlands late this month.