Military authorities said Rahim Buday is now being grilled for his possible role in bombings that simultaneously rocked the cities of Davao, General Santos in Mindanao and Makati City in Metro Manila.
Buday, now an Arabic teacher at a Madrasah school in Pagalungan, Maguindanao, was arrested inside his residence last Saturday on a warrant for murder and multiple frustrated murder issued by Mandaluyong City Judge Paulita Acosta.
"He has admitted his participation to the SM Megamall bombing and we are still trying to determine if he also has anything to do with the Valentine’s Day incident," Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman and Civil Relations Group commander Brig. Gen. Jose Angel Honrado said.
Col. Restituto Aguilar, the Army’s 602nd Brigade commander based in Carmen, North Cotabato, said that based on initial interrogation, the bombing operation inside Cinema 6 of the SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City, was carried out to portray an unstable government and to drive away foreign investors.
"They (suspects) wanted to show that the government was not in control of the situation and for foreign investors not to have trust in the peace and order situation," Aguilar said in a press conference after Buday was presented to media at Camp Aguinaldo.
Authorities arrested in August 2003 two other suspects behind the Megamall bombing, namely: Dante Ambo and Danny Boisan, a cousin of Buday, and both members of the special operations group (SOG) of the MILF. They are now facing multiple murder charges before the Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court.
Aguilar said authorities are still in pursuit of a certain Ustadz Nabel Panayaman, the alleged officer-in-charge of the MILF-SOG. He allegedly gave Boisan and Ambo the bomb components during a meeting at Buday’s house in May 2000.
"Ambo and Boisan were then instructed to neatly wrap the explosives and strap them to their bodies and later assemble the bomb inside the cinema’s comfort room to avoid detection," Honrado said.
But military authorities were careful not to link the bombing operations to the MILF, which are in peace negotiations with the government. Honrado said the arrest of MILF members in the 2000 bombing will not affect the peace negotiations of the government with the Muslim rebel group.
"The warrant (of arrest) was not issued against any particular group, it was issued against a particular individual," Honrado said.
"Even if we prove that these (suspects) are members of the MILF, it does not necessarily mean that the commission of the act was sanctioned by the organization," he added.
MILF spokesperson Eid Kabalu admitted that the suspects were indeed members of the MILF. He particularly noted that Buday used to be part of the medical team of the Unit 12 of the 110 MILF Base Command based in Pagalungan town.
However, he stressed that the MILF has not sanctioned the suspects to carry out the operations, if indeed the three were involved.
"The MILF leadership will investigate if they were indeed involved in the Megamall bombing. We will bring this matter also to the joint CCCH (Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities)," Kabalu said, referring to the joint cease-fire monitoring team of the government and the MILF.