COTABATO CITY – The military has started bracing for possible retaliations by renegade Moro rebel leader Ameril Ombra Kato for the arrest in Maguindanao of three of his followers tagged in the killing of a barangay several years ago.
Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said Kato’s followers Abe Ali, Nasser Antao, and Suwaeb Lagelay were arrested by combined police and military operatives in Datu Saudi, Maguindanao last week.
The three, however, were not apprehended for being members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but for their alleged involvement in the murder of a barangay chairman in Datu Saudi town.
“There was a standing warrant for their arrest,” Ando said.
Text messages have reportedly been circulating in adjoining Datu Piang and Datu Saudi towns that Kato and his forces would retaliate.
Ando downplayed as “whimsical and preposterous” the MILF’s insinuation that the three followers of Kato, head of the front’s 105th Base Command, were evacuees who were arrested in an evacuation center.
Local officials said evacuees are reluctant to return to their villages due to the rumored renewed attacks by Kato’s men.
Kato carries a P10-million bounty for leading bloody attacks last August on supposedly demilitarized villages in North Cotabato.
“What this commander wants is for us to join him in fighting the government. How can we? We have families to sustain and we have children that are supposed to be studying in schools,” said an evacuee from Barangay Nimao, Datu Piang.
Some 10,000 more villagers fled their homes as separatist rebels ambushed an Army convoy in Barangay Dapiawan at the boundary of Datu Piang and Datu Saudi in Maguindanao more than a week ago, swelling the number of displaced local folk to 42,200.
“The evacuees from that area blame the ambushers for their miserable, deplorable condition in the evacuation sites,” said Datu Piang Mayor Samer Uy.
The World Food Program distributed to evacuees in Datu Piang last week 3,700 bags of imported rice and 2,010 boxes of preserved dates donated by the Saudi Arabian monarch.
Uy said he has appealed to residents of areas still unaffected by the Army-MILF hostilities to stay put in their communities, but many have fled as they feared for their safety.
Police authorities said the forces of Kato and rogue MILF leaders Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo, and Aleem Sulayman Pangalian have split into smaller groups to elude pursuing government troops.
Macapaar and Pangalian carry a bounty of P10 million and P5 million, respectively.
All three MILF commanders are facing 199 counts of murder, robbery in band, arson and other atrocities. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe