MARAWI CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 24, 2013) – Philippine soldiers intercepted assorted automatic weapons and arrested 2 men at a government checkpoint in Marawi City in the southern province of Lanao del Sur, officials said on Thursday.
Officials said members of the 65th Infantry Battalion under the 103rd Infantry Brigade, recovered a dozen automatic rifles, sub-machine gun and grenade launchers from Muslimin Binao Ali and Junaid Ali, who are now being investigated by the police.
The two men were in a private car when they tried, but failed to evade the checkpoint manned by security forces in the village of Datu Saber.
“Troops initially observed the said vehicle with no (license) plate number to be apparently evading the checkpoint at Datu Saber and when soldiers flagged it down, they saw its passengers with one mini-machine gun or Minimi and upon further visual search inside the vehicle, it yielded more guns or a total of 12 high-powered firearms with ammunition,” General Ricardo Rainier Cruz III, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Cruz said they are still trying to determine who the owner of the weapons is.
“We still don’t know who the owner of all those weapons is and we are awaiting the results of the interrogation so we can file the appropriate charges against them,” he said.
Brigade commander General Daniel Lucero said the men were not cooperating with authorities. “They are not talking, but the investigation still continues,” he said in a separate interview.
The recovery of the weapons came ahead of next month’s political campaign for the local and national elections in May and at the time of the implementation of the six-month total gun ban by the Commission on Elections.
Elections in the southern Philippines are traditionally bloody and violent because of warring political clans and candidates. (Mindanao Examiner)
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