Man held for bomb is into gunrunning

COTABATO CITY—The man arrested for gun and improvised bomb possessions on Friday admitted to police authorities that he was in the bomb and gunrunning business.

Suspect Rahib Pelandoc Guialudin admitted to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (CIDG-ARMM) that he was to deliver the assorted high-powered firearms and improvised bomb to a “contact buyer” in Davao Oriental when arrested by lawmen in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao.

Aside from the bomb, Guialudin also yielded three homemade .50-cal. Berretta sniper rifles, an M-16 Armalite rifle and a .45-cal. pistol when police cornered him on Friday in Barangay (village) Madidis.

“Those firearms were not mine. I ventured into gunrunning and bomb selling because I am unemployed, I am an ordinary farmer,” Guialudin told a local TV station in Filipino on Saturday.

According to the suspect, he bought the homemade sniper rifle for P20,000 and planned to sell it at P25,000 to a contact buyer in Davao Oriental.

He said he bought the IED, which was fashioned from a 60 mm mortar, from a certain “Toto,” who hails from Maguindanao, to be delivered to a buyer in Davao Oriental.

Improvised bombs with cell phones as trigger mechanisms were a signature armament of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, against the military in Maguindanao.

Guialudin was arrested while his companion, Nadzir Pakasi Mongkas, was killed when he shot it out with arresting CIDG-ARMM elements. Both were riding on a multicab en route to Davao City when flagged down by government forces in Barangay Madidis.

Days earlier, government agents had received a tip the duo would transport explosives from Datu Paglas to Davao City.

Guialudin is detained at the CIDG-ARMM headquarters in Cotabato City.

Earlier police reports said Guialudin was a member of the “Tamengkog group” engaged in bomb making and gun selling in Maguindanao and nearby provinces.

He refused to talk about the rash of bombings in Cotabato City, Maguindanao and North Cotabato. Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao