The 19th Infantry Battalion of the

Philippine Army The Philippine Army (PA) () is the main, oldest and largest branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), responsible for ground warfare. , it had an estimated strength of 143,100 soldiers The service branch was established on December ...

(referred to as the 19IB PA, or simply the 19IB) is an organic unit of the

8th Infantry (Storm Troopers) Division The 8th Infantry Division, Philippine Army, known officially as the Storm Trooper Division, is one of the Philippine Army's Infantry units in the Visayas and under the AFP Central Command, combating local communist insurgent units, and terrorists ...

Headquarters

The is currently stationed in the Eastern Visayas region, with its headquarters in Catubig, Northern Samar.

Prior assignments

19IB had been assigned to the 10th Infantry Division in

Arakan Arakan ( or ; , ), formerly anglicised as Aracan, is the historical geographical name for the northeastern coastal region of the Bay of Bengal, covering present-day Bangladesh and Myanmar. The region was called "Arakan" for centuries. It is ...

North Cotabato Cotabato, formerly and still commonly referred to as North Cotabato and officially the Province of Cotabato, is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Soccsksargen region in Mindanao. Its capital is the city of Kidapawan, the ...

for a four year stint until 2020, and had been based in Kananga, Leyte under the 8th Infantry Division prior to its North Cotabato assignment.

Notable incidents

1993 Disappearance of Robin and Diorito Trosing

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

noted an incident on 31 May 1993 in which Palapag, Northern Samar farmers Robin and Diorito Trosing were taken for questioning by the 19IB and a local Citizen Armed Force Geographical Group (CAFGU) unit. Amnesty noted that many of the individuals in such cases are "presumed to have been killed in detention.

2010 Killing of Leonardo Co, Sofronio Cortez and Julius Borromeo

The 19th Infantry Battalion (19IB), which was under the command of 1Lt Ronald Odchimar at the time, became involved in a widely publicized incident on November 15, 2010, in which preeminent Filipino botanist Leonardo Co, a forest guard named Sofronio Cortez and a local farmer named Julius Borromeo, who were gathering endangered tree species seedlings in

Kananga Kananga, formerly known as Luluabourg or Luluaburg, is the capital Cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, city of the Kasai-Central, Kasai-Central Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was the capital of the former Kasaï ...

Leyte Leyte ( ) is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is eighth-largest and sixth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 2,626,970 as of 2020 census. Since the accessibility of land has been ...

, were killed in what the Army claimed to be "a crossfire with the

New People’s Army The New People's Army (; abbreviation, abbreviated NPA or BHB) is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). It acts as the CPP's principal organization, aiming to consolidate political power from what it sees as the pre ...

2007 labor leader arrest

In May 2007, the 19IB was the unit which oversaw the high profile arrest of labor leader Vincent Borja, who was found innocent and released three years later in 2010.

References

{{reflist Battalions of the Philippines