MANILA -- A team of prosecutors has been in Zamboanga City for days to collect evidence needed in the filing of cases against the Nur Misuari-led faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), whose gun battle against soldiers already killed dozens and displaced more than 120,000 residents.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima could not say however if the government is inclined to file rebellion or sedition cases against Misuari and other leaders of the siege as this would depend on the evidence at hand.
Tasked to build the cases were Assistant State Prosecutors Niven Canlapan and Aristotle Reyes, Prosecution Attorney Cesar Angelo Chavez III, Assistant Regional Prosecutor Ivy Damayo Elvinas of the Zamboanga Peninsula Regional Prosecutor's Office and Assistant City Prosecutor Edwinlino Custodio of the Zamboanga City Prosecutor's Office.
De Lima said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) also helps the Philippine National Police (PNP) in gathering evidence and testimonies.
Now on its 13th day, the crisis in Zamboanga is the most serious security problem faced so far by President Benigno Aquino III. It has yet to be resolved despite military claims of diminishing rebel forces.
Meanwhile, New York-based Human Rights Watch said soldiers and Muslim rebels have committed serious abuses during the fighting.
It noted that military and police have allegedly tortured or otherwise mistreated suspected rebels in custody while the MNLF used Christian hostages as human shields, "whom Philippine government forces attacked, apparently indiscriminately."
The group interviewed six MNLF detainees, of which five said they got suffocated when soldiers or policemen interrogated them by putting a plastic bag over their head. The detainees also accused the interrogators of punching and kicking them and were forced to admit to being MNLF members.
"An elderly detainee alleged that his interrogators blindfolded him and dunked his head into a toilet bowl twice. Another said alcohol was poured into his nose to get him to confess," the Human Rights Watch said.
The group called for an investigation into the alleged abuses and hold accountable members of the military and police involved.
Ninety one of the 94 MNLF rebels who surrendered or were captured are currently detained at the San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)