ph3.bet 2 Moro fronts join former enemy 6th ID’s anniversary activities
COTABATO CITY — Mindanao’s largest Army unit, which has been involved in deadly clashes with two Moro secessionist fronts that are now partners in peace and development projects, will celebrate its 37th founding anniversary this week.
Activities related to the 37th founding anniversary of the 6th Infantry Division, which covers Central Mindanao's Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, and Sarangani provinces, began last week. The events kicked off with a shooting competition among personnel from its units and a gathering of retired soldiers, who received free medical and dental services.
The 6th ID also has jurisdiction over the cities of Cotabato, Tacurong, Koronadal and General Santos.
Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of the 6th ID, told reporters on Sunday, October 20, that the division held a simple banquet to honor retired personnel from its units, expressing appreciation for their key roles in its peace and security missions during their active service.
“We cannot thank them enough. We are grateful to all of them,” Nafarrete told reporters.
Bangsamoro Labor Minister Muslimin Sema, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, told reporters that the 6th ID has evolved from a state “fighting machine” aimed at quelling the Moro uprising in Central Mindanao to a partner of its former enemies, the MNLF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. They seek to further the security and community-empowerment agenda of Malacañang’s separate peace agreements with both fronts.
At least 500 soldiers in different units of 6th ID are either children or relatives of former MNLF and MILF guerillas, who had been reintegrated into the local communities as part of the Mindanao peace process.
“Our members had figured in bloody clashes with units of the division in the 1980s until the early 1990s. Now we see its personnel visiting our enclaves in Central Mindanao as peacebuilders, rescuing people from floods, extending support, giving out food and medicines to calamity-affected families and helping resolve family feuds among big Moro families,” Sema said.
Senior officials of the MILF separately told reporters on Sunday that units of the 6th ID helped them and local government executives settle amicably at least 27 bloody clan wars, involving big Moro groups, in the past six years.
Nafarrete said besides representatives from the Bangsamoro regional government who belong to both the MILF and the MNLF, they are expecting high officials of the Philippine Army and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region to grace this week's culmination program of their 10-day commemoration of the 6th ID’s 37th founding anniversary.
Nafarrete said he is glad about the partnership now of the 6th ID, the MNLF and the MILF in furthering peace and sustainable development in areas that were rocked by Army-rebel clashes before both groups had crafted separate final peace compacts with Malacañang.
Influential MILF and MNLF field commanders, some serving now as elected barangay and municipal officials, helped units of 6th ID secure the surrender in batches, since 2019, of more than 500 members of the now moribund allies Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
Nafarrete said their units had also collected more than 2ph3.bet,000 assault rifles, machine pistols, mortars, M60 machineguns and rocket launchers voluntarily surrendered by owners through the joint intercession of MILF and MNLF community leaders and commanders of battalions and brigades under 6th ID in the past six years.