Cotabato more vulnerable to kidnapping attacks

 COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – The city’s 37 barangays seemed even more vulnerable now to kidnapping attacks, despite the arrival of a company-size Marine contingent - as a consequence of last week’s deactivation of the Army’s anti-crime Task Force Tugis that once guarded all gateways kidnappers used in their intrusions here.

The city is now guarded merely by some 50 Marines, from the 27th Marine Co., which took over two key roadside detachments of the defunct Task Force Tugis, which was tactically deactivated last week by Gen. Anthony Alcantara, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, just as the Marines were alighting from an Air Force C-130 aircraft that brought them in from Zamboanga City.

Alcantara said the Task Force Tugis has been converted into a new peace-building outfit, dubbed Task Force Bigkis Lahi, which will implement socio-economic and humanitarian projects in far-flung communities in support of the government’s peace overtures with local Moro communities.

The city’s closely-knit Chinese community, more than 50 of them, kidnapped one after another in a seemingly unending spate of kidnappings that began in the early 1990s, are apprehensive of what is for them “security vacuum” resulting from the abrupt disbandment of Task Force Tugis and the deployment here of only a company-size Marine unit as replacement.

“President Aquino should send to Cotabato City at least two battalions of Marines to stop these kidnappings once and for all,” said a Chinese hardware store owner, who asked not to be identified.

Chua Yu Beng, president of the city’s Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said they are elated with the coming of the Marines, but still want the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police to focus more attention on the need to beef up the city’s police force.

Marine Lt. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, commander of the Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga City, told The STAR over the weekend that they are still waiting for an approval from the highest headquarters of the Armed Forces on their planned initial deployment here of the Marine Battalion Landing Team 7 from Sumi­sip, Basilan.

“The AFP should not dilly-dally with the deployment here of enough Marine combatants because there is now a security vacuum in the city, which is guarded only by about 200 policemen and less than a hundred Marines,” said Aniceto Rasalan, secretary to the city mayor here.

The 27th Marine Company that arrived here last week only has one vehicle and a lone motorcycle which its plainclothes agent rides in going around.

Cotabato City Mayor Japal Guiani, Jr., chairman of the city peace and order council, loaned one of the city’s service pick-up truck to the 27th MC to address the void.