Datu charged with rape in 2007 roams free with guards

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Local folks are puzzled as to how a Moro datu charged with rape in 2007 has freely been roaming around, allegedly being protected by “men in uniform.”

Worse, suspect Andi Montawal and his companions reportedly pulled off a daring escape last week after having been disarmed at a military anti-loose firearm checkpoint in Pikit town in the first district of North Cotabato.

“No one from among the soldiers that inspected them of their firearms knew who he (Montawal) was. It seemed he had ordered his companions to embark on their vehicle, ordered the driver to turn around and sped away,” Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID), said on Tuesday.

Hermoso said Army intelligence operatives later found out that the vehicle is owned by the Montawal family in Montawal town, about 10 kilometers northeast of Pikit.

Hermoso said some Army officials in Central Mindanao are aware of the rape case involving Montawal, but neither of them knew him personally, nor has a copy of the warrant for his arrest.

“The soldiers at the checkpoint did not shoot his vehicle as it sped away because there were so many houses in the surroundings and there were other vehicles coming from the opposite ends of the highway,” Hermoso said.

Hermoso said the commander of 6th ID, Brig. Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, has ordered the commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Battalion, which has jurisdiction over Pikit and nearby Montawal and Pagalungan towns, to submit a comprehensive report on the incident.

“We are also urging potential witnesses to help shed light on the incident for us to really get to the bottom of it,” Hermoso said.

Montawal, an ethnic Maguindanaon, is related to the incumbent mayor of Montawal, whose exact administrative identity is Municipality of Pagagawan, based on its original municipal charter.

The elusive Montawal was first arrested by combined policemen and combatants of the 6th ID’s now defunct anti-crime Task Force Tugis about five years ago while at the Violtan Pension House in Cotabato City.

He was then reportedly turned over to the court that issued the warrant for his arrest. Nothing more was heard about him since, until he and his followers figured in hostilities with a rival group during the 2013 campaign period and, subsequently, his having been seen roaming around freely, accompanied by bodyguards.

The 2007 rape case involving Montawal was transferred to the sala of a Manila-based judge on the behest of the victim’s family, which complained of harassments meant to force them into agreeing to an amicable settlement with monetary benefits.

Updates on the progress of the case were so scarce since the change of the venue for its litigation.

Hermoso said Army probers are now also trying to determine the identities of Montawal’s escorts intercepted last week by soldiers at Pikit.

“Because they were allegedly clad in Army combat uniforms we have to determine if they are soldiers, impostors, or members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit,” he said.

Chief Superintendent Noel Delos Reyes, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said he had ordered the precinct commanders of Maguindanao’s Montawal and Pagalungan towns and the police director of the province, Senior Superintendent Rudelio Jocson, to help verify the checkpoint incident.

The municipality of Pikit is under the North Cotabato provincial police office, which is inside the territorial jurisdiction the Region 12 police office in Gen. Santos City.

Delos Reyes said he had also ordered the intelligence chief of the ARMM police to disperse copies of warrants for Montawal’s arrest to police and military units in Maguindanao and surrounding towns in nearby North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces.

Delos Reyes said public cooperation is essential in locating the whereabouts of Montawal.

Hermoso said the 6th ID will not hesitate to file administrative charges against the soldiers that disarmed Montawal’s group last week if proven to have set them free, as insinuated on social media by skeptics.

“How can they just set them free in broad daylight along a national highway? After the soldiers collected their firearms they talked to each other in Maguindanaon dialect which the soldiers did not understand. All of a sudden they boarded their vehicle as it turned around and they sped away,” Hermoso said.