6th ID's 185 new soldiers to perform anti-COVID-19 frontline duties

MAGUINDANAO --- The Army’s 6^th Infantry Division has 185 new personnel for deployment to units involved in government COVID-19 containment operations in central Mindanao.

Major Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of 6^th ID, said Wednesday the new 185 soldiers completed their basic training, as requisite to admission into the Philippine Army, only last June 1.

The 185 neophyte soldiers were also lectured on the religious intricacies of the culturally-pluralistic communities in central Mindanao that they are to serve as Philippine Army troops and as anti-COVID-19 frontliners.

They were trained for five months at the Division Training School in Barangay Semba in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao, not too far away from Camp Gonzalo Siongco, where 6^th ID’s headquarters is located.

“Besides their peacekeeping missions they shall also help in the government’s war on coronavirus. They shall be the `manpower complement' for the medical frontliners out there enforcing anti-COVID regulations,” Uy said.

The 6^th ID covers the provinces of North Cotabato, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Sarangani provinces and the cities of Cotabato, Tacurong, Koronadal and General Santos.

There is an alarmingly high prevalence of COVID-19 cases now in all of the provinces and cities under the jurisdiction of 6^th ID.

The management of central Mindanao’s main COVID-19 treatment facility, the Cotabato City Regional Medical Center, or CRMC, in Cotabato City, announced Tuesday that a number of its medical personnel have contracted the disease and that all of its isolation wards are now full of patients.

The CRMC said its supply of oxygen is running out and it needs more ventilators for the more serious COVID-19 patients in intensive care units.