Wednesday, January 30, 2008 Kidapawan peace council favors Al-Khobar payoff By Malu Cadeliña Manar
KIDAPAWAN CITY -- The City Peace and Order Council (CPOC) here has rallied behind City Mayor Rodolfo Gantuangco for paying sums of money to an extortion group sometime last year amid brewing dissent on the mayor's action.
Gantuangco has earlier said there was nothing wrong with the payoff because it was part of "covert" legitimate anti-terror operations.
The money was used to trace the account of Nacir Abison, believed to be one of the top leaders of the Al-Khobar Terror Group, which according to intelligence reports, was traced to an account of a Moro rebel group.
In a special meeting held last Monday, members of the CPOC lauded Gantuangco's move, saying the city is the only local government unit (LGU) that stood and worked with authorities so that suspects behind the KMCC Mall bombing in November last year would be charged and arrested.
"Police are very happy with the support of Mayor Gantuangco to prosecute the suspects and that the payoff is necessary so that we can request the court to issue a warrant of arrest against one Nacir Abison," said CIDG Provincial Head Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac.
CIDG is one of the groups that carefully studied and planned the covert operations against the suspects.
CPOC members, however, lamented the "premature disclosure" of an affidavit executed by the city mayor in a local radio station claiming that such radio broadcast enabled the suspects to elude arrest.
The radio broadcast of Gantuangco's affidavit was done a day before the local court issued a warrant of arrest.
"All our efforts for several months went to naught because of the premature broadcast made, which mentioned the name of the suspect," said City Police Director Leo Ajero.
This has also prompted the council to pass a resolution expressing displeasure and disappointment over the incident and urged the local media to be more responsible and prudent in broadcasting sensitive information.
Earlier, Gantuangco admitted that he paid P100,000 to Al-Khobar, a gang of Moro gunmen involved in extortion, but he maintained that the payoff was made to establish the involvement of the suspects in the extortion activities and the series of bombings that rocked the city last year.
The police used the affidavit executed by Gantuangco in filing charges against Abison and his companions.
The same was also affirmed by city prosecutor Al Calica who said that the actions made by Gantuangco has his personal knowledge and is necessary to prosecute the extortionists.
Calica disclosed that two separate cases were filed against Abison -- extortion activities and murder, multiple frustrated murders and multiple attempted murders for his involvement in the November 2007 bombing here, which left one person dead and several others injured.
"We included the name of Abison in the murder case because it is a non-bailable crime as compared to extortion", he explained.
The council also expressed fear that the untimely broadcast and the authorities' failure to arrest the suspect may lead to the gang's retaliation to the covert operations initiated by Gantuangco.
