DINAS, ZAMBOSUR: Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agents raided. Oct.16, six houses at Binuatan village
here, including that of an MILF member, reports Luwaran, the MILF website.
The MILF identified its member as a
certain Manalao Butito, Political Committee Chairman of Dinas and a member of
the Local Monitoring Team (LMT) of Zamboanga Del Sur.
Abbas Salung, Chairman of the MILF
Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH), filed a letter-protest
the next day addressed to BGen. Carlito Galvez, Chair of the GPH-CCCH about the
incident.
Salung informed Galvez in his
letter that the PDEA raiding team apprehended Butito and brought him to PNP
Camp Avelon in Pagadian City and put him under custodial detention at the camp
despite the committee’s persistent request for his immediate release.
“This raid and detention of a
senior MILF political leader and a member of the LMT, a mechanism of the GPH –
MILF Ceasefire Agreement constitute blatant violations of the ceasefire accord
and seriously undermine the GPH – MILF Comprehensive Agreement on the
Bangsamoro (CAB)”, Salung said in his letter.
Salung further said that raid and
detention of MILF leaders and workers for the GPH – MILF Ceasefire Agreement
violates the GPH- MILF Ceasefire Accord.
This, he added, undermines the
confidence building measure between the government and MILF pursuant to the GPH
– MILF Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).
It is also a “total disrespect and
dishonor to the safety and security guarantee for the MILF personalities
involved in the peace process pursuant to the GPH – MILF Ceasefire Accord,” he
said.
“We take this case as direct
affront to this Committee and those involved in the peace process”, he
continued saying.
Salung has asked the GPH-CCCH and
IMT to act on the matter and for the immediate release of Butito otherwise,
there is no option left but to elevate the same to the GPH – MILF Peace Panels.