COTABATO CITY (Friday, September 5, 2025) — Eight more members of the now defunct Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered to the military in Barangay Kabengi in Datu Saudi Ampatuan on Thursday, September 4.

Three of the eight BIFF members are experts in fabrication of improvised explosive devices that they rig with electronic blasting contraptions that can be detonated from a distance using mobile phones.

Major Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry, told reporters on Friday, September 5, that the eight men first turned in their combat weapons and home-made bombs to the 90th Infantry Battalion before renouncing their membership with the BIFF during a symbolic rite at the 90th IB’s headquarters in Barangay Kabengi, in the presence of Army officials led by Brig. Gen. Edgar Catu of the 601st Infantry Brigade.

The event was witnessed by local executives in Datu Saudi Ampatuan and representatives from the regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Gumiran said the group surrendered through the joint intercession of Catu, Lt. Col. Luqui Marco, who is commanding officer of the 90th IB, and traditional Moro community leaders and local government officials, among them Datu Saudi Ampatuan Mayor Bassir Banjo Utto.

The leader of the group, who asked reporters to keep his identity for security reasons, had said they decided to surrender after learning that the BIFF members who had surrendered ahead in batches to different units of 6th ID in Central Mindanao in recent years had been reintegrated to the local communities and are now thriving peacefully as farmers, tricycle drivers, construction workers and livestock raisers.

The mayor of Datu Saudi Ampatuan and representatives of the Ministry of Public Order and Safety-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao had provided the eight former BIFF members with cash grants and food supplies that they would need in their return to their respective barangays in different towns in Maguindanao del Sur.

In the past three years, more than a thousand members of the BIFF and its ally, the Dawlah Islamiya, both known for fomenting public animosity towards non-Muslims and tagged in all deadly bombings in Central Mindanao since 2014, had yielded to units of the 6th ID and the Police Regional Office-Bansgamoro Autonomous Region.

All of them had been reintroduced to mainstream society via a joint regional reconciliation program for violent extremists of the 6th ID, the PRO-BAR, line agencies in Region 12 and the Bangsamoro regional government.

Photo shows the leader of the group that surrendered to the 90th IB turning over a long-range sniper rifle to Catu before he and his followers rejected violent religious extremism during Thursday’s activity in Barangay Kabengi.