COTABATO CITY (February 9, 2026) — Sometimes the best man for a military job is a woman.
Officials of the 10th Infantry Division and local executives in Davao del Norte province separately told reporters on Sunday, February 9, that the country’s first ever female commanding officer of an Army battalion, Lt. Col. Jovily Carmel Cabading, had accomplished, by many folds, what was expected of her during her two-year leadership of the unit.
Cabading, commanding officer of the Army’s 60th Infantry Battalion, relinquished her post to a successor, Lt. Col. Colonel Jesus Rosete, via a symbolic rite on Friday in Camp Morgia in Asuncion town in Davao del Norte, officiated by the commander of the 10th ID, Major Gen. Alvin Luzon.
Cabading is assigned, meantime, at 10th ID’s headquarters in Camp General Manuel Yan, Sr. in Barangay Tuboran in Mawab, Davao de Oro, pending her assignment to a higher post anytime soon.
“We are proud of her. The 10th Infantry Division is now part of the history pertaining to a hardworking woman who had led one of its battalions so well,” Luzon said.
Radio reports on Sunday in Central Mindanao quoted officials of different women’s peace-advocacy and humanitarian groups, among them residents of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, as saying that they are proud of the military service feats achieved by Cabading during her stint as commanding officer of the 60th IB.
“I wish she gets assigned to the 6th Infantry Division, which is covering many towns in my province, so we can work together in peacebuilding thrusts in the communities under my jurisdiction,” Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza of Cotabato, presiding chairperson of the Regional Development Council 12 encompassing four provinces and four cities in Region 12, told reporters.
Police officials in Davao Del Norte said Cabading, while at the helm of the 60th IB, supported their law-enforcement operations extensively and helped them address trafficking of narcotics and other criminal activities of remnants of the New People’s Army in remote upland areas in the province.
Local executives in Davao del Norte have also confirmed that Cabading was also partly instrumental in helping them secure, via backchannel dialogues, the surrender, in batches, of 412 NPA guerillas from across the province in the past 24 months.
Radio reports on Sunday also stated that officials of the multi-sector Davao del Norte Provincial Peace and Order Council are grateful to Cabading for having supported their reintegration into mainstream society of the NPAs from different towns in the province who had pledged allegiance to the government in recent months, in the presence of local executives and leaders of indigenous groups.
“For what she has done, we are thankful,” Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of the Philippine Army, told reporters via text message on Sunday.
