Ex-cop’s ID found in Maute hideout

The Philippine National Police has distanced itself from an alleged former policeman whose identification card was recently found in a Maute Group hideout and supposed drug den in Marawi City.

PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa clarified that the former policeman, who was assigned to the Antipolo, Rizal police, had been “dropped from the rolls” since 2014.

“He is no longer a policeman … and we no longer know of his whereabouts,” Dela Rosa said. He, however, declined to name the ex-policeman.

“We cannot track down these people, but the latest information we knew is before he went absent without leave, he reconverted to Islam,” on the influence of a fellow Muslim policeman from Basilan, but Dela Rosa was quick to clarify that converting to Islam is “not a crime.”

Local police officials were earlier quoted in reports as saying that the former policeman might have joined the Maute group, self-styled supporters of the terrorist Islamic State group, who had laid siege to Marawi City and prompted the ongoing fighting in
the city.

Still validating

Dela Rosa, however, said the PNP was still validating the information. “We have not confirmed if it was really him in possession of the ID. He could have given it to someone else, and it could have been recovered anywhere. So we can’t really say it was him there, unless we were able to arrest him at the crime scene, or his body was found and retrieved in the battle area.”

The Maute hideout, which was inside a mosque, also yielded various drug paraphernalia after it was raided by operatives
of the Mindanao PNP drug enforcement group last week.