Is Kato dead?

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – Text messages have been circulating here since Friday night claiming that former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) commander Ameril Ombra Kato is dead.

Local officials were among those who received the text messages that Kato died in his lair at the boundary of Maguindanao’s adjoining Guindulungan, Datu Saudi and South Upi towns, after suffering from stroke.

The military said they are still verifying such reports. Abu Misri Mama, spokesman for the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM), meanwhile, denied such claims.

 “It’s only the BIFM that can confirm if Kato is dead. Unless the group does not confirm it, people will continue to speculate,” said the commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID), Major Gen. Rey Ardo.

Ardo also reiterated his offer of free medical services for Kato at the 6th ID’s Camp Siongco Hospital. “If he still alive and he wants free medication, he can just send us an emissary and we can have him picked up by an Army medical team,” he said.

“Four days ago, (Kato) was walking around the camp when his vision darkened and he collapsed,” Mama told AFP.

“He regained consciousness three minutes later and told his followers they should go back because he did not feel well.”

Mama said that a vice commander had taken Kato to a doctor and he had not been seen since then. The vice commander said he was merely suffering from asthma.

But sources in the rebel group said that Kato could barely speak anymore and was communicating through writing.

Mama said that if the rebel leader died, they would announce it publicly.

“There are some people that wants him dead,” he said when asked by reporters about the circulating text messages.

Cotabato City Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema said he received information that Kato was bedridden and could no longer speak.

“But he was still alive and was being treated then according to my informants,” Sema said. “That was his condition then. I don’t know of his condition now.”

 Kato and his group began dis­tancing themselves from the MILF after the main organization opened peace talks with the government to negotiate an end to the 33-year Islamist insurgency.

He is believed to have as many as a 1,000 followers, rejected the talks and accused his former comrades of abandoning the fight for an independent Muslim homeland in Mindanao.

– With Jaime Laude