JUSTICE FOR ANOTHER BOMBER THAT NEVER WAS

By: TAHER G. SOLAIMAN

COTABATO PROVINCE – For the second time, members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) arrested a fall guy in their desperate efforts to capture Kule Mamagong, a bombing suspect, who is currently facing charges of multiple murder with multiple frustrated murder.

Operatives of the PNP Regional Intelligence Office 12 (PNPRIO-12) based in General Santos City arrested Nasrodin Cua in the Carmen Transport Terminal in Poblacion (downtown) Carmen, Cotabato last July 10, 2009 at about 5 p. m.

Cua, 22 years old and a resident of Barangay (village) Manarapan, Carmen, Cotabato, earns his humble but decent living by driving a passenger motorcycle locally known as “skylab.” It rained that afternoon. So, he decided to catch some rest in the terminal. Suddenly, the poor guy found himself handcuffed and dragged into a waiting car by the PNP operatives led by P/Senior Insp. Ryan Paloma, deputy chief of the PNP Regional Intelligence Office 12.

Immediately, Cua was brought to the Carmen municipal police station for interrogation. Then and there, he was asked whether, indeed, he was Kule Mamagong. He vehemently denied, and rightly so, that he was Kule Mamagong. The arresting officers asked him several questions as they tried to pin him down.

The police officers, afterward, brought Cua to the PNP provincial headquarters in Amas, Kidapawan City where he was again bombarded with questions. But he consistently denied the accusation that he was Mamagong.

At about 9 p. m. that same day, the arresting officers acceded to the request of PO3 German Cua, a PNP member assigned with the Kabacan municipal police station in Kabacan, Cotabato, that his nephew be placed under his custody for the meantime. PO3 Cua is an uncle of Nasrodin Cua.

Then, the “accused” was locked up in the Kabacan municipal police station at about 10 p. m. It was there where we visited him early morning the next day. He related to us how the arresting officers bombarded him with questions that he might, perchance, admit the crimes he was accused of.

We were fortunate to have chanced upon P/Senior Insp. Paloma, the leader of the arresting team, at about 4 p. m. last July 11. He explained to us that the bases for the arrest of Cua were a cartographic sketch of and a warrant of arrest against Mamagong.

Paloma admitted that the name of Cua was nowhere be found in the warrant of arrest. He, however, claimed that “somebody” pointed to Cua to be the same person as Mamagong.

We find the excuse flimsy at best.

Cua was transferred to the lock up cell of the Kidapawan City police station last July 12 until he was finally committed to the BJMP-Kidapawan City jail in the afternoon the next day where he is now languishing for a crime he never committed.

Meanwhile, we learned from P/Supt. Chino Mamburam, Kidapawan City chief of police, that there is P600.000 reward that is at stake for anyone who can capture Mamagong.

Mamagong, according to police authorities, is one of the alleged masterminds of the bombing in Makilala, Cotabato on October 10, 2006 that killed six persons and seriously injured 32 others. He is facing charges of multiple murder with multiple frustrated murder “with no bail fixed” filed against him by the police in the Cotabato Province .

This is not the first time, nonetheless, that the police authorities arrested the wrong person on the pretext of running after Mamagong.

On January 13, 2007, policemen assigned with the PNP regional office of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) arrested Oting Mariano in Poblacion (downtown) Carmen, Cotabato.

Mariano, a resident of Barangay (village) Cadiis, Carmen, Cotabato, was brutally tortured by his abductors before he was brought to the Cotabato Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) in Amas, Kidapawan City by a senior police officer identified only as Sanchez on January 19, 2007.

Together with staffs of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) and Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND), we visited Mariano in the CPDRC on January 29, 2009. We noticed that signs of torture were still visible on his back, head and arms, then. He told us that his abductors forced him into admitting that he was Mamagong whom the police tagged as a commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“They blindfolded, handcuffed and gagged me by wrapping my mouth with adhesive tape,” Mariano told us in a Maguindanaon vernacular.

“They even electrocuted me with wires attached to my head and arms,” he further said.

It was only on September 20, 2007 that Mariano was released from detention for lack of sufficient evidence against him.

Immediately after he was released from detention, we visited Mariano in his home in Barangay (village) Cadiis, Carmen, Cotabato and we found out that his left eye could barely see as a result of his having been electrocuted by his abductors.

Going back to Cua’s case, the Barangay Council of Manarapan passed a resolution last July 15 asserting, among other things, “that Nasrodin O. Cua is different from – and not the same person as – the one known as Kule Mamagong.”

Guinaid Dalid, the Barangay chairman of Manarapan, said he is more than willing and always ready to testify before any court to prove that Cua is not Mamagong.

“I will not put my name at stake (in defending Cua) if I am not certain that he is innocent of the crime he is being accused of,” Dalid told us.

Now, we humbly submit that the PNP – and any government authority for that matter – should rein its operatives and stop them from arresting and detaining anybody without the benefit of strong evidence as doing so inevitably tarnishes the image and irreparably damages the credibility of the institutions that are traditionally looked upon as protectors of the people.

Letting Cua pay the price for Mamagong’s crimes, if indeed the charges against the latter were true, is unfair by any standard or excuse.

We were able to talk to some members of the intelligence community and they vouched for the innocence of Cua.

It is for this reason that the relatives and friends of Cua plea that he be released from detention and be afforded due compensation for having been wrongly imprisoned as soon as possible in the interest of fairness and justice.