EDITORIAL - Get your act together

As if we didn’t have enough problems with terrorists, our uniformed services are also brawling over turf. There was confusion yesterday as the military and police issued conflicting statements about the arrest of several men believed responsible for the deadly bombings in General Santos City.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines announced that one of the men, JR Jikiron, was the man who identified himself as Abu Muslim al-Ghazie, who had called up radio stations to claim responsibility for the bombings. The name is obviously an alias, probably inspired by Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, the Indonesian who recently pleaded guilty to illegal possession of explosives found in General Santos. Al-Ghozi is said to be the intelligence officer of an al-Qaeda cell operating in Southeast Asia. Police in General Santos, later backed by the Philippine National Police headquarters at Camp Crame, belied the military’s claim, saying al-Ghazie’s true name is Abdulatip Adsoy Paglala, who remains at large. To prove its point, the PNP released a sketch of the suspect, which it obviously hoped did not look like Jikiron.

Paglala eluded arrest during a police raid on his house in Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat Wednesday afternoon. The raiding team apprehended his wife and four men. In Cotabato City, meanwhile, a military-led team arrested Jikiron and three others while the suspects were withdrawing money from an automated teller machine. Yesterday military officials said they had evidence to prove that Jikiron was the man who had identified himself as al-Ghazie. To add to the confusion, at least two calls were made to radio stations in Mindanao yesterday by men claiming to be the real al-Ghazie.

Both the military and police said the suspects they had apprehended had links to the Abu Sayyaf. You wonder how this operation will progress when the officers involved are contradicting each other. You can’t expect any sharing of leads or information here. The biggest beneficiaries of this turf war are the terrorists. If the military and police can’t get their act together, the crooks will always stay one step ahead.