GENERAL SANTOS CITY – Forty-eight former New People’s Army rebels from Sarangani received financial assistance from the Department of Social Welfare and Development in line with the social integration benefits program for former communist guerrillas. Sarangani Gov. Ruel Pacquiao and Social Welfare Undersecretary Alan Tanjusay officiated the distribution of the P5,000 social protection package to each of the 48 former NPA rebels during the turnover ceremony at the Provincial Peace and Order Council meeting on Tuesday, June 13. Pacquiao said the financial assistance intended for the former rebels was a gesture by the government to reciprocate  misguided local communist insurgents who abandoned the underground movement and pledged their allegiance to the government. He said the social protection package is given to NPA surrenderers while they are being enlisted into the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program of the government. The beneficiaries are among the NPA surrenderers from the province who yielded to the 73rd Infantry Battalion, 12th Regional Mobile Force Battalion, and Joint Task Force Gensan this year. “Ka Roy,” one of the NPA surrenderers from Malapatan town, thanked the government for providing them with financial assistance as they gradually assimilate into the mainstream society. He recalled the hardships they had gone through while serving as combatants for the NPA. Ka Roy urged his former comrades to lay down their arms and avail of the local peace initiatives and return to the mainstream society.