COTABATO CITY—At the height of kidnappings here in the 1990s, a lone voice became familiar in the airwaves—that of Tocao Mastura, mayor of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.
At times pleading and sometimes threatening, Mastura would call on the kidnappers, mainly members of the Pentagon Gang, to free their captives.
If his appeal was not heeded, the pistol-packing former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front would lead followers in rescue operations.
While refusing to comment on reports he had also ordered relatives of kidnappers taken as a bargaining chip against kidnappers, Mastura said he takes pride in helping in the war on kidnapping in Maguindanao.
“A tooth for a tooth,” he would say of his policy.
“You have to speak the language the kidnappers speak,” he once told reporters.
Since then, kidnapping has ceased in his town and there had been fewer cases reported in this city.
Mastura, who is now running for Maguindanao governor, started serving as mayor of Sultan Kudarat, a first-class town with a population of about 95,000, in 1976.
When he reached his term limit, he had his daughter run for mayor.
He recently returned as mayor of Sultan Kudarat, a Maguindanao town that lies less than 500 meters from Cotabato City.
Mastura credits himself and his allies with transforming the town, which hosts several manufacturing businesses, into a first-class municipality.
His take on peace and order has earned him a reputation similar to other tough-talking officials, like Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City.
Mastura said he made it clear to his constituents that engaging in criminal acts will not be rewarded, but punished.
Mastura is the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Dipatuan Kudarat, who was sultan of Maguindanao from 1581 to 1671, and the younger brother of renowned historian and former Maguindanao representative and now senior Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace panel member Michael Mastura. Edwin Fernandez and Allan Nawal, Inquirer Mindanao