Tanod implicated in Davao blasts cleared

COTABATO CITY — A barangay tanod here who was implicated in the twin bombings that rocked Davao City early this year, has been cleared of the charges, Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema said yesterday.

Sema, secretary-general of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), said the Davao City court found suspect Emran Gumanod innocent of allegations that he was involved in the blasts that left 39 people dead and over 200 others wounded.

Sema said Gumanod, a former MNLF member, would return to his work as barangay tanod. Gumanod used to be the team leader of civilian volunteers guarding one of this city’s two public markets.

"There is reason for us to rejoice because we have proven to the law enforcement units that carried out the arbitrary arrest of so many innocent people tagged as behind the bombings that they were, indeed, wrong in their accusations and theories and that there is a need to dig deeper to identify the real culprits," Sema told reporters.

Sema said about a dozen other suspects, some of them residents of Maguindanao and still minors, are still languishing in jail, arrested allegedly without warrants just weeks after the blasts at a crowded waiting shed outside the Davao International Airport and a row of food stalls at the Sasa wharf in Davao City.

Gumanod was arrested here last July by combined team of the military and the Philippine National Police.