Sema confident ambush brains unmasked soon

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – This city’s vice mayor, who survived an ambush last Jan. 10, returned to work yesterday, confident that the police could soon identify the real brains of the failed attempt on his life.

Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema, who presided over a two-hour session of the city council, said he decided to report for work to belie text messages purporting that he has been incapacitated due to the bullet wounds in his right cheek and lower jaw.

“I also want to show the people of Cotabato City that I can never be cowed by a mere attempt on my life by people who want me dead for political reasons,” Sema told reporters, without elaborating.

Sema was on his way home when two men on a motorcycle overtook his vehicle and fired at him with an M-16 assault rifle.

One of the suspects, later identified as Zermin Abdullah, an employee of the Office of Southern Cultural Communities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was gunned down by Sema’s security escorts.

Some sectors here have asked Philippine National Police chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome to personally look into reports that policemen who responded to the ambush have not turned over Abdullah’s cell phone yet to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which is investigating the ambush.

A witness, who surfaced last week, expressed readiness to speak about Abdullah’s “strong connections” with the masterminds of the ambush.

In an earlier interview, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo said probers recovered from Abdullah a key to a government-owned vehicle.