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By Jefferson Antiporda, Reporter
Mayor Alvarez Isnaji and his son Haider, or Jun,
who were among those charged with kidnapping-for-ransom in
connection with the abduction of television reporter Cecilia
“Ces” Oreña-Drilon and her crew and a university professor,
must be released from detention because they were illegally
arrested.
According to Nasser Maromsalic, the chairman of
Muslim Assistance Legal Foundation, the Philippine National Police
failed to observe the rules on warrantless arrest and even denied
the Isnajis of their rights.
He explained that warrantless arrest requires
personal knowledge on the part of the arresting officer that the
suspect was engaged in the crime and that the arrest must be
effective immediately. These requirements, Maromsalic said, were
absent in the case of Mayor Isnaji, of Sulu province’s Indanan
town, and his son.
“They [Isnajis] were brought to Manila
initially to undergo debriefing, then they were made as suspects and
were detained . . . that should not happen because it is a violation
of the [rules on] warrantless arrest and they should be released,”
said Maromsalic during the weekly Kapihan sa Sulo media forum in
Quezon City.
He added that the national police placed the two
under custodial investigation, not debriefing, and therefore the
Isnajis were denied of the constitutional right to counsel as well
as their Miranda rights.
Also charged with kidnapping were Abu Harris or
Tek, Taun Wals or Walid, a certain James and several John Does, for
a total of at least 14 individuals who allegedly took part in the
abduction on June 8.
The kidnapping of the Drilon group came about
two months before elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao. Mayor Isnaji is said to be contesting these polls as a
gubernatorial candidate for Sulu.
It also happened a few weeks after the Malaysian
government announced that it will be pulling out its peacekeepers in
Mindanao allegedly because of dissatisfaction over the ongoing peace
process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front.
Maromsalic said these issues might also have
some connection with the recent kidnapping wherein the group behind
it was forced to commit such act because of “hopelessness.”
There are other kidnap groups in southern
Mindanao region, according to a former hostage.
Arlyn de la Cruz, also a journalist and a victim
of kidnapping more than five years ago, told the media forum that
the Abu Sayyaf was not alone in the dirty game. She blamed the
emergence of these groups on the 1996 peace agreement between the
government and the Moro National Liberation Front, or MNLF.
The Abu Sayyaf and the liberation front are both
Muslim groups battling for an independent Islamic state in southern
Philippines. An extremist one, the Abu Sayyaf is listed as a foreign
terrorist organization by the US State Department.
De la Cruz said the government allowed MNLF
members to keep their firearms and even integrated some of them into
the Armed Forces.
She noted that some aspects in the agreement did
not materialize, which she said, forced the members of the
liberation front and even the “integrees” to resort to
kidnapping, using firearms issued to them by the government.
On why journalists are being abducted, de la
Cruz said kidnappers learned that members of the mediamen, specially
the foreigners, could be a good source of money.
According to her, the kidnapping spree began
after the kidnapping of mostly Western tourists in Sipadan resort in
Malaysia by members of the Abu Sayyaf. The journalists, both local
and foreign, de la Cruz said, were desperate to get a “scoop”
(exclusive story), to the point that they were willing to pay money
just to have an interview.
“There was one foreign journalist who paid
$150,000 for an interview but after the interview he was not allowed
to leave, making him a hostage . . . he was just released after he
paid ransom,” she revealed.
After that incident, the extremist group again
abducted two journalists, from ABS-CBN, and they were released five
days later and were personally fetched by a network executive.
On the Drilon group’s abduction, de la Cruz
said she believes that it was just a case of fund-raising or
money-making on the part of the Abu Sayyaf and had nothing to do
with politics.
During the Kapihan sa Sulo media forum, Senator
Aquilino Pimentel Jr. called on the national police to be careful
with their accusations against the Isnajis and other suspects.
Pimentel clarified that he was not saying that
the two are innocent, but that the national police should present
evidence other than photographs showing the mayor and his son
counting the ransom for the freedom of the Drilon group.
“The pictures are not an evidence, they are
propaganda,” he said.
Pimentel said the only way the government can
put a stop to kidnapping and other crimes in Mindanao is to change
to a federal form of government. This shift, he added, could lead to
the establishment of the Bangsamoro federal state.
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