COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 4 April — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday expressed disgust over the “antagonistic attitude” being shown by the national police (PNP) and military to the separatist group despite the number of peace agreements it had signed with the government.

The latest of these agreements provides for cooperation between the two sides in fighting kidnap-for-ransom groups, the so-called ‘lost commands,’ and other criminal syndicates operating in Mindanao.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu voiced out this sentiment as he pointed to an escalation of efforts by the national police and military to discredit the Front.

He said the police and military had been busy trying “to link the MILF with criminal elements through deceit and other illegal means.”

He cited the raid conducted by combined elements of PNP and military at Barangay Apopong in General Santos City on the morning of April 22, 2002.

Kabalu said it was clear that the raiding team planted evidence against the suspects to implicate the MILF.

“This was repeated when the same PNP and military operating units salvaged (summarily executed) four persons whom they claimed to be terrorist and make it appear that the four were killed in an encounter,” he said.

The police had reported the supposed clash early on Tuesday at Barangay Bula, also in General Santos City.

Kabalu said the raiders went further by “planting” stationery with MILF seal as well as a uniform with identification belonging to the MILF’s 205th Brigade.

“In all these incidents, the MILF has categorically denied any involvement, much more participation in criminal activity,” Kabalu said.

He noted that the four people supposedly killed in the clash were found to have positive of gunpowder burns, an evidence that they were shot at close range contrary to the police report that they were killed in an encounter. He said the gunpowder burns were revealed in autopsy findings by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

On Wednesday, he said the police also raided a Muslim house in Barangay Darong of Sta. Cruz town in Davao del Sur province, killing two persons and arresting three others.

Kabalu said it later turned out that there was a mistaken identity in the enforcement of an arrest warrant as the victims were all innocent.

“The raiding police officer, however, were able to plant evidence supposedly showing the MILF involvement on a campaign to sow terror in the Davao region,” the MILF spokesman said.

The MILF is set to file a protest before the Peace Panel through the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) in a bid to rein in rogue elements of the military and police.

Such hostile acts, Kabalu complained, is a violation of the existing RP-MILF cease-fire agreement and does not bode well for the peace process.

More arrests

Meanwhile, police and military personnel have arrested at least six men in raids on an Islamic school in Pangasinan and a training camp in Tarlac, according to police reports.

The suspects — Dawud Muslim del Rosario Santos, Pio Abagne de Vera, Marcelo Cenar Egil, Allan Barlagdaton, Reendo Cain Dellos and Angelito Trinidad — are undergoing interrogation to see if they have links to the Al-Qaeda terror network of Osama Bin Laden.

Seized from the six were a .22-cal. revolver, a .45-cal. pistol, a shotgun, night vision binoculars, military uniforms and documents showing that one of their alleged leaders, Ahmad Santos, received training from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao.

Agents of police anti-terrorist Task Force Sanlahi, under Chief Supt. Jaime Caringal, and members of the Pangasinan police force and the army’s Intelligence Service Group rounded up the six during a raid on the Madrasah in Barangay Malag, Anda town, at around 11 p.m. Thursday.

The suspects said they were Muslim converts and were radio correspondents of the Fi Sabilillah Da’Awah and Media Foundation, which is reportedly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But officials said the suspects were members of a local terror group, noting that two of their alleged colleagues were the armed men who were stopped by police from terrorizing Tarlac City on May 1, Labor Day. One of the two, Khalid Amir, was killed in a shootout with police.

About two hours after the raid on the school, police and military operatives swooped down on the school’s alleged training camp in Barangay San Clemente, a mountainous village in Tarlac, and arrested several other persons.

The number and identities of the second set of suspects were not immediately known.

Recovered from this group were two M-14 rifles, one M-16 rifle, four grenades, five rifle grenades, detonating cords, ingredients used in the manufacture of explosives and sophisticated surveillance gadgets.