News Updates - 25 February 2010 (Thursday)

CAFGUs did it – CHR
by Sonny Sales
www.journal.com.ph
Thursday, February 25, 2010

CAMALIG, Albay – The regional office of the Commission on Human Rights tagged members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Units here in the abduction and killing of two farmers in Barangay Taplacon here last Jan. 15.

CHR Bicol director Pelagio Señar in a radio interview in Legazpi City said the victims were suspected by the military to be communist supporters.

Señar said the victims’ families and two witnesses said 14 armed men clad in military uniform abducted Vicente Moradillo, 55, and Ananias Cardiente, 28.

The bodies of the victims were found on Feb. 7.

Army spokesman Col. Leoncio Sironai of the 9th Infantry Division warned the CHR not to blame the killings on the CAFGUs.

Sironai said witnesses brought to the CAFGU detachment could not identify the “suspects” in the gallery.


NPA remains given decent burial
By Restituto Cayubit
Manila Bulletin – www.mb.com.ph
Thursday, February 25, 2010

CAMP LUKBAN, Catbalogan City, Samar — Two dead New People’s Army cadres whose bodies were found buried in shallow graves in Arteche, Eastern Samar were exhumed and given decent burials recently, according to Maj. Gen. Arthur Tabaquero, Commanding General of the Philippine Army’s 8th Infantry Division.

He said that government troops along with officials and health authorities of Bgy. Conception, in Arteche, Eastern Samar exhumed the remains of two NPA rebels who were wounded and eventually died and were buried in two shallow graves discovered by barangay folks.

The military official said the cadavers were identified as Elcon Liad alias Binal/Mila/Nilpo/Batoy and one known only as Naval/Antoy. Liad was further identified by Tabaquero as the Commanding Officer of the NPA’s Regional Security Force (RSF), Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee with code name Bangkaw.


Two rebels nabbed for kidnapping soldiers
By Al Jacinto
Manila Times – www.manilatimes.net
Thursday, February 25, 2010

ZAMBOANGA CITY: Police authorities captured two alleged Moro rebels tagged as involved in the kidnapping of a former soldier in Zam-boanga City, officials said.

Officials said the two men Abraham Ibno and Ansar Yusop were members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s Muslim rebel group, which is fighting for self-determination in the restive southern region.

The rebels were arrested after they released Benjamin Almonte late Friday near the town of Ipil in Zamboanga Sibugay province. Almonte was abducted by gunmen February 6 while fishing off the coast of the village of Manicahan in Zamboanga City.

“We captured the two in a continuing operation,” said Rear Admiral Alexander Pama, head of the anti-terror Task Force Trillium and commander of the naval forces in Western Mindanao.

Almonte said his captors freed him for a still unknown reason. “The leader of the kidnappers, whom they called Commander, said he is releasing me because he pities me,” he said.

He said his two escorts ran away after they saw a group of men who turned out to be government intelligence agents. “I also ran away and ended up on the side of the government people, and one of them grabbed me and told me that I am safe and that they are from the government side,” Almonte said.

Almonte’s family did not say whether ransom was paid to the kidnappers.

No group claimed responsibility for Almonte’s kidnapping or the motive behind this and police said it is still investigating the case. But other sources said members of the so-called MILF’s special operation group under Waning Abdusalam were behind the kidnapping.

Abdusalam was also linked to the kidnapping last year of Irish Catholic priest Michael Sinnott last year in Zamboanga del Sur province. Sinnott, 80, was taken by six gunmen on October 11 from his missionary house in Pagadian City and brought to Lanao province and freed in Zamboanga City after a month in captivity. Abu Sayyaf militants had also kidnapped many people, including foreigners, in Zamboanga City in previous attacks and brought them to nearby Basilan and other areas in Mindanao.