The images provided to the Senate public order committee show high-powered firearms reportedly being used for MILF training
MILF TRAINING? A photo of alleged MILF training and recruitment in Sulu involving high-powered firearms, presented at the Senate hearing on the Mamasapano clash on February 24, 2015.
Senators asked the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace panels to explain photos of alleged MILF training and recruitment in Sulu involving high-powered firearms.
At the fifth Senate hearing on the Mamasapano clash on Tuesday, February 24, Senate public order committee chairperson Grace Poe presented the photos via Powerpoint, which she said a “concerned citizen” had sent to her committee.
Poe’s staff later released the photos enclosed in a February 17, 2015, letter of Sulu Vice Governor Abdusakur Tan. The photos had text identifying some of the men, the tag “MILF member and mostly ASG,” and the label: “Date started-January 01, 2015. Place-CAMP AKBAR, DEMO FARM. Barangay Punay, Municipality of Panglima Estino, Sulu.”
The senator asked the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) to look into allegations of “ongoing massive recruitment and training being done by the MILF in the municipality of Panglima Estino, Sulu, and the opening of an MILF camp in the said town.”
Citing information from Tan’s letter, Poe said: “The images show high-powered firearms being used during the training. These activities are provocative actions, which are inimical to the security of our people. It also violates the Implementing Operational Guidelines on the Cessation of Hostilities between the Philippine government and the MILF.”
In Tan’s letter, the vice governor said that former Panglima Estino Mayor Hadji Munib Estino and his son, incumbent Mayor Benshar Estino “reportedly facilitated” the MILF recruitment and training “as they announced the opening of the MILF Camp intended for the Basic Training of the Bangsamoro National Guard as a prerequisite to becoming bona-fide members of the MILF.”
Tan said he supports the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which aims to create an expanded region in Muslim Mindanao with greater powers and resources. Yet the vice governor expressed reservations about some provisions in past congressional hearings.
Tan wrote in his letter: “We fear that other sectors of the community who are opposed to the Estinos may resort to likewise arming themselves for their own defense, which could result to turmoil that may erupt at anytime. The local government units in the Province of Sulu are expressing their collective apprehension on this matter even as we support the passage of the BBL.”
Under the peace deal with the MILF, the rebel group is supposed to turn over its arms after the passage of the BBL, a gradual process formally known as “decommissioning.” It is one of the steps in the peace roadmap under the transition phase in the creation of the Bangsamoro region.
Drilon: What’s sensitive about politics?
Senate President Franklin Drilon asked MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, OPAPP Secretary Teresita Quintos Deles, and government peace panel chairperson Miriam Coronel-Ferrer to explain the photos.
Iqbal said he first saw the photos as presented by Tan in a January hearing on the Bangsamoro bill at the House of Representatives. Yet, the MILF leader said that the photos then did not have the label “ASG,” which is known to stand for the terrorist “Abu Sayyaf Group.”
“There was no mention about Abu Sayyaf. This is the first time I saw that kind of photo with ‘Abu Sayyaf.’ I cannot confirm if that photo shows the MILF. I asked for a copy of that photo but I was not given a copy,” Iqbal said.
He added: “That municipality is embroiled in political problems, an ongoing misunderstanding between politicians in area. It has something to do with that.”
Deles said her office also received a copy of the photos, and that she asked the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH), and a secretariat member of the MILF to check them.
Drilon responded: “Should we not have done our own investigation as government? On an issue such as this, you ask the MILF to comment. The MILF is expected to deny, as chair Iqbal is doing now.”
Ferrer then said that the government peace panel already asked its ceasefire mechanism to check on the photo, and it already has a report and analysis of the picture. She said the “source of the validation” was the office of Western Mindanao Command Lieutenant General Rustico Guerrero.
When Drilon asked Ferrer if the peace panel provided Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin a copy of the report, Ferrer said no.
“This issue has to do with Sulu politics and that is part of the context. We have not been able to elevate this. In compliance with what Sulu officials asked us to do, we have done our own investigation,” said the government negotiator.
Ferrer added, “There are some identified personalities, some private armed groups in terms of weaponry. It is very sensitive because of the nature of politics there, political alliances emerging in time for 2016.”
Drilon responded, “What’s so sensitive about that? Apparently there is a continuous build-up of arms notwithstanding the Comprehensive Agreement [on the Bangsamoro] we have signed.”
Drilon and Poe asked Ferrer to provide the Senate a copy of the report, saying only national security, not politics, can be invoked as grounds for secrecy.
Deles later said the issue “has the possibility to bring out violence.” She echoed Ferrer in saying that the matter involved arms used in “political conflicts.”
“The peace process navigates through terrain that is not always black and white. If we’re not preoccupied with hearing, this report would have reached me and I will send this to you,” Deles said.”
http://www.rappler.com/nation/84897-senate-milf-training-photos
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