Highway project pushes through amid soldiers' killing

COTABATO CITY - The fatal ambush on Sunday morning of six soldiers guarding a multi-million road project in Sumisip, Basilan, will not affect the completion of the thoroughfare, officials said Monday.

The project is part of the Saudi-funded 80-kilometer circumferential road connecting the municipalities of Basilan, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, chairman of the regional peace and order council, said the incident will not cause the suspension of the concreting of the highway.

Hataman on Monday ordered the director of the ARMM police, Chief Superintendent Noel delos Reyes, to lead the filing of criminal charges against the ambushers, reportedly led by Radzmi Jannatul and a certain Katatung.

Jannatul and Katatung, who both belong to the extremist Abu Sayyaf, and their followers attacked from different directions the combatants of the Army’s 64th Infantry Battalion patrolling near the road project in Sitio Mompol, Barangay Libug in Sumisip, killing a lieutenant, Jun Galima Corpuz, and five of his subordinates.

Corpuz belonged to Class 2014 of the Philippine Military Academy.

Corpuz and his men regularly patrolled the surroundings of a three-kilometer portion of the Basilan circumferential road straddling through agricultural enclaves in Barangay Libug, located near the border of the adjoining Sumisip and Maluso towns in the island province.

Hataman said Army intelligence units and the Basilan provincial police office are now collecting information needed in building an airtight case against the culprits.

“We in the ARMM government believe it was an attempt to sabotage the project. There’s no stopping now. We’re almost at the homestretch in the implementation of this highway project,” Hataman said.

Col. Rolando Bautista, commanding officer of the Army’s 104th Brigade, which has jurisdiction over Basilan, said he was saddened with the deaths of the six members of the 64th IB.

“They were outnumbered, but persisted and perished as true soldiers loyal to the flag,” Bautista said.

Regional Public Works Secretary Hadji Emil Sadain and Hataman both said that the implementation of the Basilan circumferential road will continue, but under tighter security.

Hataman said he requested the 104th Brigade to deploy more soldiers near isolated stretches of the highway being concreted by construction firms.