Wary of retaliation

Policemen are on heightened alert in anticipation of possible retaliatory attacks by comrades of the seven suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members arrested in Tondo, Manila early this week.

Western Police District-Intelligence Unit (WPD-IU) officials said they are not discounting the possibility of retaliation by the suspects’ comrades against informants who helped the police locate and arrest the suspects.

An intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that without the informants’ help, the raid would not have resulted in the arrest of the seven suspects believed to have been deployed to Metro Manila to conduct terror attacks.

Western Police District director Chief Supt. Pedro Bulaong, earlier said "the suspects were identified by our assets in the Muslim community."

With the information provided by the informants that suspicious-looking men were keeping explosives in Isla Puting Bato in Tondo, police applied for and secured a search warrant to conduct the raid, which resulted in the seizure of almost four kilos of ammonium nitrate and non-electric blasting caps.

Experts of the WPD-Explosives and Ordnance Division (WPD-EOD) said ammonium nitrate, is a chemical used as a fertilizer but can also be used as a detonator for a bomb.

Bulaong said they applied for a search warrant on the basis of military intelligence reports that suspected MILF rebels had slipped into Tondo and were planning retaliatory attacks against civilian targets after the military conducted punitive operations in Mindanao last weekend.

A police official warned the suspects’ comrades against planning to eliminate or kill informants in Tondo’s Muslim community, as doing so would not affect the case against the suspects, now detained at the WPD’s detention cell.

Manila police arrested 75 people during a raid in Tondo, but only the seven suspects were linked to possible terrorist activities. The raid was part of the government’s intensified campaign against terrorism.

The seven suspects — Alejandro Ignacio, Alfred Abay-Abay; Jimmy Salik, 27; Abdulbasit Malacaw, Romeo Romo, 39; Ricky Mendoza, 26; and Abdulwahid Manuro, 48 – have been charged with illegal possession of explosives before the Manila Prosecutor’s Office. Malacaw is the group’s alleged leader.

Bulaong said the seven alleged MILF members underwent tactical interrogation at the headquarters in order to find out the MILF’s plans and "scope of operations."

He noted that they are also coordinating with the military’s intelligence service and with the Philippine National Police brass to gather more information on the suspects’ activities.

Aside from the suspects’ alleged affiliation with the MILF, three of them have pending arrest warrants for murder, while two others were found to be evading their jail sentence.

Street crime alert raised

The Western Police District (WPD) is also bracing for a rise in criminality, particularly cell phone snatching at the city’s university belt as classes resume in June.

Bulaong assured the public that measures to thwart rise in theft and other crimes against property are in place.

"Our policemen are bracing for a rise in the incidence of crimes against property, which include holdups, jeepney heists and cell phone snatching," Bulaong said.

He pointed out that uniformed policemen have been deployed at every university in the areas of Sampaloc, Mediola, Recto and Intramuros.

He noted that reports show there is a significant rise in crimes against property during the enrollment and in the first weeks of the school year.

Apart from police deployment, Bulaong has organized a School Campus Security Committee composed of policemen, school security officers, school administrators and barangay officials.

The committee, he said, will help police in terms of peace and order and orderliness in the vicinities of schools.