Police have lost track of Maguindanao provincial election officer Lintang Bedol who is believed to have either left the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or sought refuge among powerful sympathizers.
Bedol is facing a six-month prison term for indirect contempt of the Commission on Elections.
The case stemmed from Bedol’s defiance of his superiors’ order for him to appear before the National Board of Canvassers to shed light on alleged anomalies in the counting of votes in Maguindanao in the May 14 elections.
ARMM police director Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao said Bedol’s whereabouts have remained unknown since he left his Cotabato City residence in the early morning of Oct.20. He left his house two days before Comelec’s issuance of a warrant for his arrest.
“We’re clueless as to his whereabouts. There are no traces of him, but we’ll keep on searching,” he said in a phone interview. He said there were even reports that Bedol had already slipped out of the country.
“According to his wife he left very early and hasn’t returned since then. I have fielded our intelligence units to track him down,” Goltiao said.
Goltiao said he is coordinating with other police units outside ARMM to widen the coverage of the search and arrest operation.
He rejected suggestions that Bedol is under the protection of an influential Mindanao warlord.
‘A needle in a haystack’
“Searching for Attorney Bedol is like searching for a needle in a haystack,” a senior police intelligence officer who declined to be named said.
“We have been informed that Attorney Bedol took with him his passport, his ATM cards, and other important documents when he left,” Senior Inspector Wally Kasuyo, spokesman of the Cotabato City police, said.
Kasuyo said Cotabato City’s police director, Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane, has sought the help of Muslim clerics and Moro leaders in the city in tracking down Bedol.
“Our city director has already assured the public that Attorney Bedol would be arrested right away if he is seen in any part of the city. But that is if he is still in the city,” Kasuyo said.
Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, also spoke of the difficulties in locating Bedol even by seasoned and decorated intelligence agents.
“Success in intelligence missions depends largely on the support of community. If the community will give agents nothing but a `runaround,’ the mission will fail,” Ando said.
‘Robin Hood’
In his hometown in Mamasapaano, Maguindanao where Bedol is looked upon as a modern-day Robin Hood, it’s almost unthinkable for him to be turned in by neighbors.
“He’s no longer in Central Mindanao. He left the region a week before the police searched for him in his house last Oct. 23,” a long-time neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said. Police thrice searched Bedol’s house in Mamasapano, but failed to find him.
Bedol is known in the impoverished community for his philanthropic ways, particularly for regularly providing poor residents with sadakah or donations of food or clothing during Friday prayers at mosques.
He also regularly gave zakat or alms to indigents, during the Muslim’s holy month of Ramadan.
A tricycle driver said he wouldn’t squeal on Bedol even if he knew his whereabouts.