COTABATO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 6, 2013) – Philippine Moro rebels stormed a police headquarters in the southern city of Marawi and shot one person before springing two detained members and seizing the police chief in a daring predawn raid Friday, a rebel spokesman told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
About 50 heavily armed members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front stormed the police station near the coastal village of West Marinaud and shot the brother-in-law of police chief Christopher Panapan and disarmed a small number of officers before taking over the compound.
The rebels then sprang MILF fighters Johanne Cader and Mesron Borodan who were earlier arrested by the police for illegal possession of firearms. The rebels escaped, tagging along Panapan, to the coastline about 150 meters away where two speedboats were waiting.
Panapan was freed at around noontime after the army demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the police chief or troops will launch an assault to rescue the prisoner.
The MILF, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group currently negotiating peace with Manila, has confirmed the assault.
Von Al Haq, a rebel spokesman, said the MILF has repeatedly demanded the release of Cader and Borodon who were illegally arrested by the Marawi police, but authorities refused to free the two men, who are covered by the cease-fire agreement between the MILF and the Aquino government.
The raid occurred just as MILF and Philippine peace negotiators resumed delayed talks in Kuala Lumpur after both sides failed to sign any substantial agreement in September.
But it was not immediately known whether the MILF raid would have an effect on the peace talks, but previous skirmishes between rebels and security forces in the restive region had grounded the negotiations aimed at ending decades of bloody fighting in the country’s restive South.
Last year, the peace panels signed the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement which would pave the way for the Muslim homeland. Under the accord, the Bangsamoro government would take a ministerial form, where members of the legislature who would be elected by the people and in return they would elect a chief minister among themselves.
Negotiators are still locked on how to go about the power-sharing which represents the heart of the peace negotiations since it contains the list of powers reserved for the central government, powers exclusive to the envisioned Bangsamoro government, and concurrent or shared powers between the two. Any delay in the peace talks would impede the working timeline of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, the body tasked to draft the Basic Law. (Mindanao Examiner)
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