Ambush on priest denounced

COTABATO CITY – Islamic theologians, leaders of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and peace advocates yesterday condemned the ambush on a Catholic priest in Basilan the other day and asked the ARMM police to do everything to put the attackers behind bars.

Fr. Felimon Libot survived the ambush unscathed, but his security escorts, one of them a Marine, were wounded as they shot it out with the attackers, numbering about 10 and believed to be Abu Sayyaf bandits.

ARMM Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan has issued a directive to Basilan Gov. Jum Akbar and the mayors’ league in the island province to help identify the ambushers.

Basilan is one of the six component provinces of the ARMM.

Libot and his bodyguards were waylaid in Barangay Upper Kabengbeng in Sumisip, Basilan while en route to Tumahubong, a hinterland barangay in the municipality, to officiate a Mass. The ambushers retreated when Libot’s bodyguards returned fire.

In early 2000, suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits snatched Tumahubong’s parish priest, Claretian missionary Roel Gallardo, and killed him while in captivity at Ponoh Mahajeh, a strategic hill, also in Sumisip town.

Ustadz Farid Solaiman Adas, chief of the ARMM’s Madaris Education Bureau, said the attempt to kill Libot was perpetrated by people who do not profess religion.

“They are bandits and surely not Muslims because it is a taboo for Muslims to harm religious leaders, regardless of what religion they preach, and to desecrate worship sites regardless of whether these are owned by Muslims or non-Muslims,” Adas said.