Zambo still under threat’

From the Manila Standard Today (Feb 24): ‘Zambo still under threat’

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Zamboanga Sibugay —Kidnapping and bombing threats in this coastal metropolis and other capital towns and cities in Western Mindanao (WM) and in the Zamboanga Peninsula “remain very high” some 15 months after the September 2013 Zamboanga siege led by heavily armed Moro National Liberation Front rebels, police said.

The rebels burned three semi-urban villages and killed hundreds of responding police and military men, civilians and attackers even as thousands residents were rendered homeless and evacuated at the Joaquin Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex in barangay Baliwasan.

Senior Supt. Angelito Casimiro, chief of the Zamboang City Police Office (ZCPO), disclosed that based on intelligence sources, Moro terrorists still have plans to conduct “kidnapping and bombing atrocities in this highly-urbanized city and other major areas of the region.”

“We are not letting our guards down. It would be much better if we  continue to place the whole city and region  on high alert level so we will always be on our toes,” Casimiro said.

He claimed, however, that he is not privy to information “that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are now training selected policemen on bomb making and investigation awareness at the Police Regional Office at Camp Abendan in barangay Mercedes and at the Western Mindanao Command (WesMinCom) in barangay Calarian.

Casimiro said that, if ever, “the move could be a part of the capacity build-up of our law enforcers.”

Meanwhile, a public secondary school official deployed in the coastal village of Labuan, where a businesswoman was earlier abducted by speedboat-riding armed men but was  later released after paying ransom, was lately reported  by intelligence men as the next target of a kidnap-for-ransom gang.

According to the ZCPO, Labuan National High School Principal Henry Ongchua has been provided with  police escorts because of the threats he received even as he appealed to the Department of Education city division office to transfer him to another learning center near the city proper for his security.

Earlier, several teachers assigned in various island elementary and secondary schools in the city and other areas of Zamboanga Sibugay were  earlier kidnapped while sailing  onboard pump boats to their stations.

The mentors were  later released after their families and other relatives were able to hand some amount of money to their abductors “for board and lodging fee.”

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2015/02/24/-zambo-still-under-threat-/