ISABELA CITY, Basilan— In what could be their boldest move yet, state forces announced Sunday that they would conduct house-to-house searches in areas where private armies are known to operate in Western Mindanao.
“We will have searches in houses of suspected members and leaders of ‘partisan armed groups,’” said Maj. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, Western Mindanao Command chief, in a security briefing attended by local executives here.
He said the operation would target the residences of identified leaders and members of private armies.
“We have to do this because (private armies) are not always mobilized and do not have camps. They keep their firearms inside their houses,” Dolorfino said.
Private armies have been used by political clans and dynasties to intimidate and harass people and influence voting in order to keep their grip on power, Dante Jimenez of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), told the Inquirer in an earlier interview.
Jimenez is a member of the six-man multisectoral commission created by President Macapagal-Arroyo in December to dismantle private armies in the aftermath of the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao that has been blamed on the Ampatuan clan.
Ms Arroyo has given the commission four months to complete its work or before the national elections in May.
Jimenez had said that private armies had been largely blamed for the political violence that usually marred local elections.
Given the time-frame for its mission, he said the commission would focus on the investigation and prosecution of leaders and members of “partisan armed groups” identified by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
There are disparate private armies scattered around the Philippine archipelago, and the national police has lost count of them. Mindanao is home to most of the private armies.
Maguindanao, tops the PNP list of election “hot spots.” The others are Basilan, Sulu, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Samar, Masbate, Nueva Ecija and Abra.
Dolorfino said the raids would be headed by a joint task force of the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
To prevent human rights violations, he said the raids must be authorized by the Joint Security Control Center (JSCC) which would be headed by an election official with police and military officials as members.
Dolorfino said the raids would also be covered by court-issued search warrants.
The PNP and AFP, he said, would seek the assistance of the Department of Justice in obtaining warrants from the courts.
“This is the only way for us to go after private armies. That’s why we are asking the help of the DOJ,” he said.
According to Dolorfino, there are 91 nonstate forces in the nine provinces of Western Mindanao, 24 of them in Sulu.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net