AFP fires Southcom chief

ZAMBOANGA CITY - The chief of the Southern Command here, Lt. Gen. Edgardo Espinosa, was relieved yesterday by the higher headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reportedly due to his failure to contain the communist insurgency and secessionist rebellion in Mindanao.

Sources diclosed that 6th Army Division chief Maj. Gen. Gregorio Camiling, based in Cotabato will assume as the officer-in-charge (OIC) before Maj. Gen. Deomidio Villanueva will take over effective on March 1.

AFP spokesman Col. Rafael Romero, however, declined to elaborate on the relief of Lt. Gen. Edgardo Espinosa, Southern Command chief.

Espinosa, who is scheduled to retire in August 2001, is now assigned to the office of Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Angelo Reyes.

"It's really hard to comment on his relief since it was the decision of top officials," Romero added during a long distance telephone interview.

Espinosa's relief came amid heightened tension in Mindanao. It also came after he said pardoned priest-killer Norberto Manero might be recruited back into the local militia. This controversial statement reportedly angered Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado.

Sources said Reyes had also been receiving complaints, some administrative in nature, against Espinosa's "lack of grasp of his men and the situation under his command."

Romero, however, denied the relief was due to the complaints. He also pointed out that Espinosa was instrumental in the capture of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front's Camp Omar in Maguindanao last week.

Espinosa took over the helm of Southcom last May 1999 from Reyes.

Meanwhile, police and military authorities have tightened the security in the entire province of Basilan particularly in the town of Isabela when another powerful explosion rocked anew the town's police station Thursday night.

Police reported that no one was hurt during the grenade attack that sent hundreds of residents into panic.

Police probers said that at about 8:30 p.m., unidentified men lobbed a grenade near the police station entrance beside the old building of the Isabela public market.

The grenade attack was the fifth to hit the capital town of Isabela in a span of one week.

Both the military and the provincial officials blamed the extremist Abu Sayyaf group for the attack. But police here believed that the bombings were staged by an extortionist group.

In another development, heavily armed separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked two military detachments separately and killed a militiaman Thursday in the towns of Tulunan and Talayan, North Cotabato.

The MILF attacks came barely a day after the meeting of the peace panels between the GRP-MILF chaired by retired Gen. Edgardo Batenga and Aleem Aziz Mimbantas, respectively in Cagayan de Oro.

Both panels reaffirmed their commitment to implement the ceasfire effective on Feb. 28 in accordance with the General Cessation of Hostilities that was forged last July 18, 1997. - With Alvin Tarroza