Who gets P3-M reward for Marohombsar’s arrest?

Who gets the P3-million reward?

Deputy Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., commander of the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force (NAK-TAF), said the money will be given to the informant that led police to Faisal Marohombsar, suspected leader of the Pentagon kidnap gang.

On the other hand, Deputy Director General Rex Piad, chief of the PNP directorial staff, said the law does not allow the policemen who arrested Marohombsar to take the reward.

NAKTAF agents nabbed Marohombsar during a raid on a lodging house on Elizondo street in Quiapo, Manila last week.

Piad did not say that NAK-TAF agents are interested in the P3-million reward, and Ebdane does not want to say anything about the matter.

Piad said: "Under the present laws, any government unit or personnel cannot get any reward for the arrest of criminals. It is part of their job."

Dr. Inshira Marohombsar-Alonto, spokeswoman for the Marohombsar family, said Faisal Marohombsar was in Manila to work for his surrender when the NAKTAF agents seized him.

"He went to Manila because of his intention of returning to the fold of the law," she said.

Alonto said her family had been trying to convince Faisal to surrender and clear the family’s name, which had been tarnished because of his criminal involvement.

Alonto said the Marohombsar family is not tolerating Faisal’s alleged criminal activities.

"The whole family condemns all the illegal activities of Faisal Marohombsar," she said. "We have always wanted him to return to the fold of the law."

Earlier, retired Col. Amad Lucman, whose wife is an aunt of Marohombsar, said the suspect that NAKTAF agents had arrested in Quiapo was not the real Faisal Marohombsar.

NAKTAF agents did not coordinate with his wife, who is the barangay chairwoman of the Muslim Center in Quiapo, when they arrested Marohombsar, he added.

But the person in NAKTAF custody confirmed that he is Faisal Marohombsar when he was charged with illegal possession of firearms at the Manila Prosecutor’s Office last Monday.

In Lanao del Sur, relatives of Faisal said the person in police custody in Metro Manila is the real Faisal Marohombsar and that kidnappings in Mindanao could not have become "successful" without Faisal.

"That’s him," a relative of Faisal said in Filipino. "Don’t believe in reports that he’s not the real Faisal Marohombsar."

Police sources at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said they are "cock sure" that the person who was arrested in Quiapo last week is the real Marohombsar, whom the police and military have been hunting for a long time.

"There is no other Faisal Marohombsar in Lanao del Sur," sources said. "While the Marohombsar family is a very big Maranaw clan, there is only one notorious kidnapper belonging to that clan –Faisal. His family has long disowned him."

Marohombsar, a known member of Maranaw royalty, has been implicated in more than 30 kidnapping cases since 1990, including the snatching of Italian Catholic priest Giuseppe Pierantoni from a convent in the coastal town of Dimatiling in Zamboanga del Sur last year.

A cousin of Faisal, a bus driver, said on condition of anonymity that at first he did not believe that Faisal had been arrested in Manila.

"But when I saw his photograph in the newspapers, I knew that he was the one," he said. – Christina Mendez, John Unson