MATI, Davao Oriental, 21 August - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) denied any involvement in the burning of a bus in Davao Oriental province yesterday.
The denial was issued by MILF area Commander Sammy Durraw, whose group was earlier named by the local police as a possible suspect in the attack.
Gunmen flagged down the Davao City-bound Bachelor Express bus in Barangay Pintatagan of Banaybanay town at about 4 a.m. yesterday, reports said.
Sammay said that while he has fighters in Davao Oriental, they have been on a defensive posture since the MILF signed a cease-fire agreement with the government last year. "Moreover, MILF forces are strictly prohibited from engaging or attacking civilian targets, such as passenger buses," he said.
It was not only the MILF fighters, though, that the local police named as suspects in the bus burning.
Supt. Catalino Cuy, the provincial police chief, said 20 members of the communist New People's Army (NPA) led by Aiken Olasiman set the bus on fire because the bus firm failed to pay "revolutionary tax."
Last month, suspected NPA rebels also torched a passenger bus owned by LCI.
But Diomabok Kadyawan, spokesman of the NPA based in the province, denied that his group was behind the series of bus burning incidents in the province." We will not do that because in the first place, we are not bandits," Kadyawan said.
NPA rebels in the past, however, have often claimed responsibility for the burning of buses not just in Mindanao but in the Visayas and Luzon as well. Because of NPA atrocities in Davao Oriental, Mandaya natives are reportedly taking up arms with government help to fight the rebels. Early last year, the Mandayas of the province against the NPA. The native warriors claimed to have killed at least 15 NPA rebels in Baganga alone.
