Ceasefire pact keeps cops from pursuing rebels in Marawi raid

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines -- The government’s 16-year ceasefire pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has kept  authorities from running after a band of MILF rebels that kidnapped on Friday the chief of the Marawi City police.

Even military units in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur, both component areas of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, had to report the incident first to the joint government-MILF ceasefire committee, in keeping with basic security protocols indicated in the interim truce.

The ARMM police said about 50 heavily-armed MILF rebels raided the Marawi City police station early Friday and sprung from detention two detained companions, Metron Borodan and Jovani Cader, and took at gunpoint the city’s police chief, Supt. Christopher Napnapan, as they fled. Napnapan has been released.

Borodan and Cader were arrested by operatives of the Marawi City police a week ago.

The gunmen had shot dead a civilian named Malik, a brother-in-law of Napnapan, for resisting to be taken hostage.

The GPH and MILF panels, under the July 1997 General Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities, are  bound to cooperate in interdicting criminals and terrorists in flashpoint areas in Mindanao through the joint ceasefire committee.

Officials of the Lanao del Sur police have complained of the constraints imposed by the peace pact on their efforts to pursue the group that kidnapped Napnapan.