Taguig mayor: Get Abus out of my city

Taguig Mayor Freddie Tinga wants Abu Sayyaf detainees out of his city.

"Taguig is certainly not the place" to hold them, he said, "because you cannot detain Abu Sayyaf bandits in a place surrounded by Muslims."

Tinga is opposed to the continued detention of 107 suspected Abu Sayyaf extremists at the Metro Manila Rehabilitation Center (MMRC) at Camp Bagong Diwa in Barangay Bicutan.

The Muslim-majority Barangay Maharlika is near the MMRC at Camp Bagong Diwa, where Abu Sayyaf detainees took hostage 100 other inmates Monday before police commandos stormed in Tuesday and killed 22 of the terrorists.

Tinga said Taguig could not achieve its goal of becoming a financial center by 2020 if the Abu Sayyaf detainees are not transferred to a jail outside of the city.

"We want business here in the city to grow, and what happened at Camp Bagong Diwa will surely affect this goal," he said.

"In the middle of the crisis, what we were after was to solve the problem... Now that it has come to pass, what we have to focus on is how not to let this kind of problem happen again."

Tinga said the city council will ask the national government to remove the maximum-security detention center at Camp Bagong Diwa, which is also home to the National Capital Region Police Office.

"The local government was never consulted on (the transfer of Abu Sayyaf detainees to the MMRC) despite the security risks the transfer poses, not only in Taguig, but Metro Manila as well," he said.

In 2001, the Taguig City Council passed a resolution "expressing vehement opposition" to the detention of Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the MMRC, Tinga added.

Two residents living near Camp Bagong Diwa support Tinga’s stand.

"They should remove those remaining bandits because they are also capable of doing what their leaders did," said Mercy San Juan, 45, who owns a store 50 meters away from the camp’s gates.

"We are peace-loving Filipinos, kaya kami lumipat sa Taguig (which is why we moved here)," said Hadja Fatima Celia Kiram, Maharlika Homeowner’s Association president.

"Nais namin ng tahimik na buhay (We only want to live quietly), Muslims are religious and professionals, but sad to say we have always been prejudged, and the presence of these people in Camp Bagong Diwa has negatively affected us."

Muslim residents of Barangay Maharlika have mixed reactions over the hostage-taking incident and the subsequent police assault that ended the standoff, Kiram said.

On the other hand, an Islamic religious leader at Barangay Maharlika opposes the transfer of the Abu Sayyaf detainees to another jail.

"If the (Bureau of Jail Management and Penology) decides to transfer the detainees, it only means that they are incapable of proving themselves and making up for their mistakes," said Sultan Panangan Pangandangan.