Army destroys surrendered guns in support of Mindanao peace efforts

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June 19, 2026 | 6:14pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Officials led on Friday, June 19, the symbolic destruction in an Army camp of military-type firearms, voluntarily surrendered by owners, to highlight the gains of a continuing multi-sector regional disarmament program complementing Malacañang's Mindanao peace process, launched two years ago.

The event, jointly led by Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, representatives from the Bangsamoro regional police and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was held at the Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, witnessed by local executives and reporters.

The firearms that were destroyed then using electric metal cutters, comprised of assault rifles, submachineguns, M79 grenade launchers and pistols, were voluntarily turned over recently to UNDP officials and the commanding officers of units of the 6th ID by residents of Upi and Kabuntalan, both in Maguindanao del Norte, and South Upi in Maguindanao del Sur, in compliance with a local disarmament initiative parallel with the Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) Program.

The UNDP, which has peacebuilding activities in far-flung communities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, is helping push the SALW Program forward. The SALW Program is being implemented in cities and provinces in Region 12 and in BARMM by the 6th ID and Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity, local government units.

The UNDP is supporting the regional disarmament campaign via its Assistance for Security, Peace, Integration and Recovery for Advancing Human Security in BARMM (ASPIRE) Project.

Ronnie Arap, Jr., UNDP’s project specialist for ASPIRE, and Cagara, who, as 6th ID commander is also overseeing the division’s anti-terror Joint Task Force Central, separately told reporters that they are grateful to the local executives, traditional Moro and indigenous non-Moro community leaders for cooperating in helping Army units in securing the surrender, via backchannel dialogues, of unlicensed firearms from their constituents.

The 6th ID and the OPAPRU had collected 2,601 undocumented combat weapons, including M60, .30 and .50 caliber machineguns, machine pistols, M14 and M16 assault rifles, M203 rifles fitted with grenade launchers, M79 grenade launchers and B40 rocket launchers since the SALW Program was launched in Central Mindanao two years ago.

“The SALW Program took off nicely and has been gaining headway because of the support of the local government units and various peace advocacy groups,” Cagara said.

Two of Cagara’s ranking subordinates, Brig. Gen. Edgar Catu, commander of the 601^st Infantry Brigade, and his counterpart in the 602^nd Infantry Brigade, Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog, had separately acknowledged the extensive support for the SALW Program by local executives, among them two provincial governors, Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr of South Cotabato and Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza of Cotabato.

Both officials said Tamayo and Taliño-Mendoza were also partly instrumental in convincing, in the past five years, more than 600 members in their provinces of the now defunct Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters to avail of the 6th ID reconciliation program for violent religious extremists.

The erstwhile terrorists, whose surrender the two governors helped work out, had pledged allegiance to the government in separate ceremonies since 2021. 

All of them had been reintroduced to mainstream society with the help of different line agencies in Region 12 and the BARMM regional government, according to Cagara.