Former MNLF commander held for Parang blast

PARANG, Maguindanao — The military has detained a former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) implicated in the Jan. 4 bombing of a basketball game here that killed 22 people.

Omar Ramalan, also known as Commander Bagi-Bagi and a resident of nearby Matanog, Maguindanao, was arrested Friday afternoon by soldiers of the Army’s 64th Infantry Battalion manning a checkpoint at a secluded stretch of the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway. He was on his way to Parang from Kapatagan, Lanao del Sur.

Ramalan’s relatives, however, said he has been missing since Friday and that soldiers guarding the checkpoint at Barangay Langkong in Matanog, where he was arrested, were not able to give them details on his whereabouts.

"He was arrested without any warrant. He was arbitrarily detained at the checkpoint and, according to the soldiers there, he was brought to (the) military headquarters in Parang," Ramalan’s wife, Bai Ron, told Catholic radio station dxMS in Cotabato City yesterday.

Sources in the Army’s 603rd Brigade said Ramalan was "invited for questioning" because he resembled one of the people responsible for the bombing.

Parang Mayor Vivencio Bataga, one of at least 71 people wounded in the attack, said he is certain that the bombing was politically motivated. He sustained 27 shrapnel wounds in different parts of his body and is recovering at the Notre Dame Hospital in Cotabato City.

Bataga, a former Army colonel who fought secessionists in Mindanao, has survived three previous assassination attempts.

Ramalan is said to be a staunch supporter of a prominent political leader here.

Since Thursday, soldiers and policemen have been hunting down a Parang town councilor after he was identified as the mastermind in the bombing.

Councilor Abdul Katab, alias Henry, has been charged with multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder, along with Suharto Ahmad, owner of an explosive-laden motorcycle used in the bombing.

Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. earlier said a political rival of Bataga had hired Katab and Ahmad.

Police said Ahmad is the owner of the motorcycle where the bomb was hidden while eyewitnesses identified Katab as the man who drove the vehicle and parked it near the gymnasium.

Bataga said he is certain Katab and Ahmad may be hiding somewhere in the province.

"If they are not in the province, they could be in Davao City," Bataga said without elaborating.

Senior Superintendent Isnaji Bantala, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police director, said Katab, who hails from nearby Bonggo island — a predominantly Muslim area — disappeared after the bombing and his relatives could not give any information on his whereabouts.

Among those killed in the bombing were a pregnant woman, who belonged to the influential Tomawis clan here, a son of a vice mayor in nearby Barira, Maguindanao, and a soldier assigned as security escort of Bataga.

Military intelligence sources said Katab is also the suspected mastermind in two bombings here last year, which also targeted Bataga.