‘Internal rifts’ behind blast?

MIDSAYAP, North Cotabato — Residents are convinced that "internal squabbles" involving local officials of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) led to Friday’s bomb explosion inside a mosque at the agency’s compound here, which left three people dead and 14 others wounded.

Worse, police and Army probers are now certain that the grenade attack at the worship site, which resulted in the deaths of NIA’s Central Mindanao director Macmod Mending, Maguindanao irrigation chief Omarkais Mamalak and an imam named Ismael Datukali, was perpetrated by someone known to the victims.

Sources in the NIA’s rank-and-file have called on investigators to also look into the possibility that the atrocity could be linked to the layoff of the agency’s casual employees, among them Moro rebel commanders in areas where irrigation facilities are located.

"Investigators should look into the practice of our office of employing these notorious commanders, giving them monthly salaries, for them not to harm workers in irrigation facilities in hostile areas," one of the sources alleged.

One of those allegedly paid a monthly wage in the NIA’s project payroll was a notorious rebel commander who carries a P1-million prize on his head and whose forces are scattered in North Cotabato’s Malitubog-Maridagao area where a P3.7-million foreign-funded irrigation project is being built.

Bombing suspect

The bombing suspect, whom investigators refused to identify in the meantime, pretended to be a worshiper and entered the fenced NIA compound through the main gate shortly before the start of last Friday’s congregational prayers at the mosque.

"There was no other way he could enter the NIA compound. Witnesses claimed to have seen him also carrying a praying mat and wearing a hat, a maroon shirt and black pants. We are now trying to picture him out through cartography," Chief Inspector Eduardo Marquez, Midsayap police chief, told reporters.

Mending’s driver, Said Sapal Dumamba, who survived the bombing unscathed, told Army and police investigators that he even prodded the suspect, whom he initially thought was there to perform the mandatory Friday prayers, to enter the mosque.

The suspect allegedly declined, saying he was not feeling well and that he was looking for a comfort room to relieve himself.

"The driver of Mending told us that he and the suspect spoke to each other in their dialect," Marquez said.

Marquez said they are now documenting the testimonies of witnesses who saw the suspect tossed the grenade at the direction of Mending and Mamalak.

"I have also been receiving so many text messages from informants that the bombing stemmed from internal and administrative problems of the regional and field offices of the NIA," he said.

Marquez said investigators from the local police, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the military and the office of North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol will start questioning today the staffers of the NIA-Region 12 to shed light on these "administrative problems."