A VETERAN hunter of the Dawlah-Islamiyah terror group has assumed command of the Army 4th Infantry Division, the main military unit fighting the communist New People’s Army in Northeastern Mindanao.
Philippine Army Chief Lt. General Romeo Brawner Jr. tasked Maj. General Jose Maria Cuerpo to "finish the fight" against the communist rebels in Northeastern Mindanao.
Cuerpo replaced Maj. General Wilbur Mamawag who has retired from military service on his 56th birthday yesterday.
“Our President has ordered to end the CPP-NPA. Finish them now,” Brawner told Cuerpo during the turnover ceremony yesterday.
“I admit that fulfilling the command’s mandated mission will prove challenging,” Cuerpo said.
Cuerpo, a member of the Philippine Military Academy ‘Bigkis-Lahi’ Class of 1990 and who hails from Iligan City, is the current deputy chief of staff for personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines before he assumed command of the division yesterday.
Prior to that, Cuerpo was the commander of the Army 103rd Infantry Brigade in Marawi City where he spent five years hunting the remnants of the Dawlah Islamiyah terror group.
In March 2022, troops led by Cuerpo overran a Dawlah Islamiyah camp in Maguing, Lanao del Sur killing at least 40 rebels and seizing a sizable amount of war material.
Cuerpo as the deputy commander of the 103rd Brigade led army patrols during the five-month fighting between the government and the Maute-led Dawlah Islamiyah terror group that seized Marawi City.
He has assumed command of the Fourth Infantry Division whose recent achievements against the CPP-NPA included the killing of National Democratic Front spokesperson Jorge Madlos alias ‘Ka Oris’ and NDF consultant Pedro Codaste.
