COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Saturday belittled the military’s claim it had captured the camp in Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay, of the outlaw Waning Abdusalam.
Von Al Haq, MILF spokesperson, said what the military had occupied was actually a civilian settlement deserted by residents because of the air strikes and shelling conducted by the military in the area since October 15.
“It’s not a camp as what the military has been claiming but a community. The residents in the area have fled because of the military’s air and ground assaults,” he said.
Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, spokesman of the Western Mindanao Command, admitted that Abdusalam’s camp was not like a regular military camp and it was easy to mistake it for a village, but the difference was in the fortifications, he said
“They have huts but with fortified positions and trenches,” he said.
Major General Noel Coballes, commander of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, said the MILF’s claim was “funny.”
“How do you explain the bunkers and machine gun emplacement and the running trenches around the area?” he asked.
On Wednesday, the military said it occupied the camp of Abdusalam’s group in Payao.
Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, commander of the military’s Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga City, said the camp had “fortified structures” and was rigged with landmines.
He said soon after its fall, he visited the camp with other police and military officials and even recovered a machine gun partly buried there.
Coballes said the camp, north of Talaib Point, could accommodate up to about 200 men.
He said when soldiers arrived there, Abdusalam and his men had already fled but traces of blood could be found everywhere.
“We had to walk for about two kilometers on marshy and mangrove areas,” Ferrer said.
Al Haq said the residents of the community fled when the military conducted the bomb run.
He said MILF forces nearby also relocated as their positions were being hit by the bombs.
Al Haq said he doubted that Abdusalam was in the community because its residents were “ninety percent supportive of the MILF.” The military claims Abdusalam is a renegade MILF commander involved in kidnappings and other crimes, but the MILF has disowned him.
Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief, said the MILF was not retaliating for the Payao attacks and all their forces had been told to be on defensive positions.
“We are in control of our forces on the ground,” he said.
The left-leaning Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization said the Payao campaign was part of the government’s program to suppress the Moro rebellion.
“The ultimate goal is to render the MILF an inconsequential revolutionary movement and to obliterate the legitimate struggle of the Bangsamoro,” MRLO spokesperson Jihad al-Qursi said in an emailed statement.
Al-Qursi said the Payao attacks came after a “scripted public disinformation campaign geared at demonizing MILF guerrillas as bloodthirsty rebels while humanizing the fascist troops of the AFP, eventually agitating the public and justifying an all-out military offensive in Zamboanga Sibugay.”
“The brutal, fascist attack by the AFP against hapless civilians and the irresponsible warmongering of out and out militarists in the Senate like Enrile and Biazon will only stoke the fire of discontent brewing in the hearts and minds of the Bangsamoro,” he said.
The National Democratic Front (NDF) in Southern Mindanao said military operations such as those conducted in Zamboanga Sibugay and Basilan “will only add to the long list of state violence and national oppression inflicted on the Moro people.”
“And it will be another reason for the Moro people to fight back against this oppressive state represented by the double-dealing, hypocritical US-Aquino regime,” The NDF said in a separate statement emailed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.