COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 12 May 2003 — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday said it was ready to return to the negotiating table but the government seemed to be no mood yet, and a Malaca?ang official warned that the separatist group may as well be declared a “terrorist” group.
Presidential chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao said the branding of the MILF as a terrorist organization has become “inevitable” as officials and investigators yesterday said Saturday’s bomb attack in Koronadal City looked like the work of the group.
The blast killed five people on the spot. Four others died in a hospital. Another bomb attached to a cooking gas cylinder was later discovered and disarmed.
Officials earlier reported 13 people died, but social welfare officers, who visited all the victims in hospitals, said some of the fatalities were apparently counted twice. One fatality was listed several times as having died after he was resuscitated three times.
Daisy Avance Fuentes, governor of South Cotabato province, where Koronadal is the capital, said suspected rebels arrested in the previous bombings apparently had worked in cells of up to five people.
“Whether or not they are getting orders from the formal leadership of the MILF, we do not know,” she said.
Police continued to cordon off the section of the market building where the blast occurred. A bomb squad searched through the debris for evidence.
The blast damaged a pillar in the market building and blew electric cables from a nearby lamp post, causing a local blackout. Market produce littered the ground along with burned human flesh and splotches of dried blood.
Fuentes said an earlier suspicion that the bomber was among the fatalities “appears not true” after all nine who died were identified Sunday as local residents.
Relatives of victims, some in tears, waited for the bodies of their loved ones at a funeral parlor where workers were having difficulty preparing the cadavers for viewing because of the extensive damage caused by the blast.
The bombing in Koronadal came after the MILF attacks in Siocon town in Zamboanga del Norte, in North Cotabato province, and the twin bombings in Davao City that left 61 dead.
“With the Davao, Siocon and the latest bombing (in Koronadal), personally I think that the tagging of the MILF as terrorists would be inevitable now,” Tiglao said.
Tiglao said no official decision yet had been reached by the Palace but Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes also said yesterday that he would push for the new label.
“We have long wanted the MILF to adopt a more serious attitude toward a peaceful settlement of the conflict but if it is indeed established that they are the ones who again perpetrated this kind of incident, then the government might be constrained to really examine their terrorist status,” Reyes told reporters upon his arrival from the United States.
Last week after the deadly Siocon attack, US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone also talked about the inclusion of the MILF in Washington’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). Last year, the US tagged the Communist Party of the Philippines as an FTO, allowing the US government to freeze assets of the group.
Interior Secretary Jose Lina said during a visit to Koronadal that the public market blast was akin to previous attacks were confirmed to have been perpetuated by MILF guerrillas. “All indications point to the MILF. But we have no concrete evidence yet,” he said.
Lina said MILF rebels were suspected in two other bombings in Koronadal earlier this year in which explosive devices were fashioned from mortar shells, similar to Saturday’s bomb. A bomb in March injured three people.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu denied responsibility. “It is not the handiwork of the MILF because we do not attack civilians,” he told DXMS radio.
Kabalu said the MILF was willing to resume peace talks if only to push forward the peace process. (Inputs from Inquirer News Service & Associated Press)
