Western Mindanao Command bans media at New Year’s Call

From the Mindanao Examiner (Jan 7): Western Mindanao Command bans media at New Year’s Call

The Western Mindanao Command has banned journalists from covering the traditional New Year’s Call of military commanders in Zamboanga City on Monday. This after the media criticized the Western Mindanao Command for its failure to regularly provide the media with news update on matters related to military and civil operations in the region, where kidnappings and threats of Abu Sayyaf attacks still remain a serious problem.

Gen. Rey Ardo, who heads the Western Mindanao Command, also failed to hold regular news conference or brief the media about its ongoing operations against the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf which is still holding at least 4 foreigners in the region. Ardo, former commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, assumed as Western Mindanao Command chief in October last year following the promotion of Gen. Noel Coballes as Armed Forces deputy chief. During Ardo’s stint, he also banned media from covering the arrival of soldiers who were wounded in clashes with Abu Sayyaf inside the military base, which former commanders had allowed.

The Western Mindanao Command’s New Year’s Call is a time when military commanders pay their courtesy to their chief and exchange greetings among senior officers. Previous New Year’s Calls were open to journalists to cover and interview military commanders about various issues.

The Abu Sayyaf is holding the past two years Japanese treasure hunter Katayama Mamaito was abducted by the Abu Sayyaf on the island of Pangutaran. Police said Katayama, whose real name is Toshio Ito, 66, is still alive, but there have been no efforts from either the Philippines or Japanese government to rescue the foreigner. He was last reported to have been helping the Abu Sayyaf in cooking food for them and freely moves around, according to Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, the provincial police chief.

Aside from Katayama, the Abu Sayyaf is also holding Jordanian journalist Baker Atyani, 43, and his two Filipino assistants Rolando Letrero, 22, and Ramelito Vela, 39. The trio went to Sulu province in June to secretly film the Abu Sayyaf for a documentary on Al Arabiya News Channel. Prior to his detention, Atyani has had previously travelled to the province in secrecy to interview terrorist leaders, the Philippine military said. The military has previously said it would arrest Atyani for espionage should he be released by the Abu Sayyaf. Atyani had also clandestinely interviewed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Freyra said two European wildlife photographers Ewold Horn, 52, from Holland; and Lorenzo Vinciguerre, 47, from Switzerland, kidnapped in February this year in Tawi-Tawi province had been brought to Sulu province. “We have been constantly monitoring the situation of all these kidnapped victims now in Sulu, but the Abu Sayyaf, as in the past, is highly mobile and would change their hideouts from time to time to avoid detection by government authorities. We have people on the grounds monitoring developments and feeding us intelligence about these victims,” Freyra told the Mindanao Examiner.

He said the government has a strict no ransom policy and authorities would not negotiate with terrorists. “We would like these problems resolved soon and our operations to locate the victims continue,” he said. Police in Tawi-Tawi said the duo was allegedly seized by members of the Moro National Liberation Front. Another group of kidnappers are also holding a Malaysian fish trader Pang Choon Pong, who was seized in October 2011 in Tawi-Tawi, but his fate remains unknown.

In November, Malaysian authorities said two of its nationals were seized by 5 gunmen disguised as policemen from a palm oil plantation in Sabah near the Philippine border. It said the two, who are cousins, were both working for the plantation in Lahad Datu, and had been taken at gunpoint. Their companions said the gunmen spoke in Malayu and Tausug, a dialect commonly used in the southern provinces of Tawi-Tawi and Sulu. There were no immediate reports whether the foreigners are being held in either of the two provinces, but Malaysia said the victims could be in Tawi-Tawi.

Abu Sayyaf gunmen are also holding an Australian adventurer, Warren Rodwell, a former soldier, who was kidnapped in the seaside town of Ipil in Zamboanga Sibugay province on December 5, 2011. Rodwell, 54, is married to a Filipina Miraflor Gutang, then 27, but local police said the marriage was in trouble within months after their June 2011 wedding.  Shortly after Rodwell's kidnapping, the then local police chief Edwin Verzon said Gutang had filed two complaints of abuse against the Australian and Gutang's parents said she had moved out of their shared house just two weeks previously. Verzon was later sacked for his comments and the local governor Rommel Jalosjos imposed a blackout on Rodwell news coverage.

The Abu Sayyaf, which means “Bearer of the sword,” has been tied to dozens of kidnappings over the past decade in the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi – all in the Muslim autonomous region; and Zamboanga City and other areas in Western Mindanao. The group, authorities said, has links also with the Jemaah Islamiya terror networks and is responsible in many bombings in key areas not only in Mindanao, but also in the Philippine capital.

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