Missing Maguindanao narco mayor dismissed from office

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Officials served on Friday a termination order for the missing mayor of Talitay, wanted since 2016 for keeping a big volume of shabu and unlicensed firearms.

Montasir Sabal was discharged from the service by the Ombudsman for undeclared ownership of lands and a house in Davao City and not for his alleged involvement in large-scale drug trafficking.

Sabal was among elected officials President Rodrigo Duterte tagged last year as “narco-politicians,” whose names he made public with a stern warning to neutralize each of them if they refuse to change for good.

The document terminating Sabal, who was in his third and last term as mayor, was delivered to his office in Talitay, Maguindanao on Friday morning by lawyer Noor Hafizullah Abdullah, regional local government secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The dismissal order was received by Talitay municipal administrator Tato Aruyod in the presence of Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello, Maguindanao provincial police director, and Lt. Col. Crizaldo Fernandez of the of 19th Infantry Battalion.

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales signed the document last July 13, premised on validated findings that Sabal owned two parcels of land and a house in a plush subdivision in Davao City and another lot in Barangay Biniruan in Cotabato City that were not indicated in his most recent statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

Abdullah, whose office is operating under the ministerial control of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, said he received the ombudsman ruling on August 8 along with a directive to enforce it from the central office of the Department of Interior and Local Government in Quezon City.

The memorandum for Abdullah was signed by DILG Undersecretary Austere Panadero.

Sabal’s younger brother, Abdulwahab, most known as Allan, is the incumbent vice mayor of Talitay.

Talitay, located in the second district of Maguindanao, was touted as the “shabu capital” of the province before Duterte was elected president in May 2016.

The ousted Sabal, an ethnic Maguindanaon, has been hiding since late 2016 after police agents and personnel of the 19th IB and other units of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, then led by the now Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. of the Western Mindanao Command, raided his  house in Talitay and found there shabu and high-powered firearms.

Sabal had escaped before the raiding teams got close to his residential compound. He has since remained at large.

Among the firearms recovered in his house and nearby quarters of his bodyguards were a .50 caliber machinegun, launchers for 40 millimeter grenade projectiles, an 81 and 60 millimeter crew-served mortars, fragmentation grenades and ammunition reloading machines.

Sabal is still being prosecuted for possession of shabu and for keeping unlicensed firearms and explosives.

Galvez said via mobile phone Friday that the 6th ID’s hunt for Sabal will continue even as he had been booted from Talitay’s mayoral post.

Tello and Fernandez on Friday tightened security in Talitay due to possible hostile actions by followers of Sabal, their political principal who was markedly generous in providing them financial support while still at the helm of their municipal government.