President Arroyo assured the people yesterday that even when faced with rising criminality, she will not resort to measures that violate human rights or any practice reminiscent of the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
The President asserted that 71 suspected Abu Sayyaf coddlers arrested in a heightened crackdown launched by the military and police in Abu Sayyaf-infested areas in Mindanao were covered by warrants of arrest issued by the courts. Other arrests, however, were reportedly made without warrants.
"They all have warrants of arrest, including the John Does. Is it Marcosian to have a warrant of arrest? They are part of our constitutional, administrative processes," Mrs. Arroyo stressed.
The Chief Executive made the assurance amid apprehensions that the ongoing crackdown against Abu Sayyaf supporters and coddlers in Zamboanga and Basilan provinces would result in human rights violations.
The militant fishermen’s group Pa-malakaya called on the government to stop arresting innocent people in connection with the crackdown.
At the same time, the President said she would convene the National Security Council shortly after the opening of Congress to tackle rising criminality.
About 100 of the suspects were rounded up in a saturation drive launched before dawn on Friday in Zamboanga City, while the rest were netted in Basilan and Sulu.
Those nabbed were placed under tactical interrogation in military camps in a bid to determine the extent of their involvement with the Abu Sayyaf.
Mrs. Arroyo said earlier there was no need for her to declare a "state of lawlessness" or suspend the writ of habeas corpus in known Abu Sayyaf havens in Mindanao to launch the crackdown.
She said rules were in place to protect the human rights of the suspects.
"The Department of Justice has issued guidelines on how to carry out the arrests.
The regulations are there so that it won’t be said that human rights were violated," the President said.
The rules provide that appropriate charges must be filed against the suspects arrested without warrants within 16 hours, otherwise, the suspects should be released.
Government forces have set up ground and naval blockades along the coastlines of central and western Mindanao to plug escape routes of the Abu Sayyaf bandits and their supporters.
This developed as Army chief Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos revealed that government agents recovered last Thursday two high-powered firearms from an abandoned Abu Sayyaf safehouse in Davao del Sur.
Reports reaching the Armed Forces general headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo said hundreds of Abu Sayyaf supporters were planning to flee to Cotabato and nearby provinces to elude the crackdown.
"We have a long list. The order of battle is long," Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Edilberto Adan said.
He did not say how many were in the list, but expressed confidence the Abu Sayyaf would be neutralized soon.
To speed up the filing of cases against the suspects, the justice department planned to dispatch four more prosecutors led by Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño to Basilan and Zamboanga City.
"This time, we assure the people that all those who are positively identified as members and supporters of the Abu Sayyaf will fall in the hands of the law," Justice Secretary Hernando Perez told reporters in Zamboanga City. He was apparently referring to two suspected Abu Sayyaf couriers nabbed in the city last year, but the court ordered their release for lack of merit of the case lodged against them by the government.
The President sent Perez, along with Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, Philippine National Police chief Director General Leandro Mendoza, Armed Forces chief Gen. Diomedio Villanueva and Zuño to monitor the progress of the saturation drive.
The prosecutors immediately buckled down to work on the 38 suspects nabbed by security forces in Basilan and Sulu on Friday.
Basilan Gov. Wahab Akbar, himself a former Muslim secessionist rebel, hailed the crackdown, saying it demoralized the Abu Sayyaf, but boosted the morale of the troops.
"They (Abu Sayyaf rebels) that the government was like rubber. They did not think it could be like steel," Akbar said, adding that 38 people were arrested in the capital city of Isabela alone.
President Arroyo ordered the all-out crackdown on Friday, aimed at ultimately demolishing the Abu Sayyaf terrorist who holds at least 21 Filipino and American hostages in Basilan for over a month now.
The President warned that those who helped the Abu Sayyaf would face the same death penalty meted to kidnappers.
The main targets of the crackdown being waged in Zamboanga City and in the nearby island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi were Abu Sayyaf sympathizers providing the extremist group food, supplies, shelter and information.
Adan said information provided by concerned citizens led to the arrest of about 130 suspects in the four areas covered by the drive.
Adan said arrested Abu Sayyaf leaders, among them Nadjimi Sabdulla alias Commander Global who was captured in General Santos City on Sunday, also gave vital information to the military.
The government-run Philippine News Agency also reported that a right-hand man of Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani and a woman money courier of the bandits were collared in Zamboanga City.
Basuan Pael, who has reportedly admitted he was a member of the Abu Sayyaf, revealed that he was on a mission to procure high-powered firearms and ammunition from a local policeman identified only as "Al."
Southcom chief Lt. Gen. Gregorio Camiling identified the courier only as Fatima.
Col. Danilo Servando, spokesman for the military’s Southern Command based in Zamboanga City, said two of those arrested in Basilan and Sulu were policemen, bolstering suspicions that the Abu Sayyaf has infiltrators in the government ranks.
The policemen were identified as SPO1 John Gupin Alih and SPO2 Tutuh Sahisa, of Barangay Carbon Malamaui in Isabela and Barangay Kasalamatan, Jolo, Sulu, respectively.
Two other suspects nabbed in Basilan were local district officials.
The crackdown in Zamboanga City intensified with police and soldiers setting up checkpoints in strategic places.
Two suspected Abu Sayyaf members were also captured in the city on Friday, with one of them wounded after he tried to escape.
More than P26,000 and a mobile phone allegedly containing a text message from Janjalani were confiscated from the duo.
The suspects – Ali Kiman and Abdul Halim who claimed they were traders – reportedly fled to Zamboanga City to evade an all-out military offensive in Basilan.
Halim has admitted providing food to the Abu Sayyaf, but only in fear.
The hostage crisis entered its sixth week , with more than 5,000 troops involved in the operations to flush out the kidnappers and rescue the hostages believed kept in Abu Sayyaf camps in the jungles of Basilan.
The crisis broke out on May 27 when Abu Sayyaf gunmen raided the upscale resort island of Dos Palmas off Palawan and seized 17 Filipino and American guests and three workers of the facility.
The victims were taken by speedboats across a 300-nautical mile sea expanse to Basilan where the kidnappers also abducted four hospital staff members and 15 plantation workers.
Four of the hostages– two Dos Palmas employees and two plantation workers – have been executed by their captors.
Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Sabaya has also claimed they have chopped off the head of American Guillermo Sobero.
Thirteen of the Dos Palmas captives have been released amid rumors of multimillion-peso ransom payments.
Of the Dos Palmas hostages, still in the custody of the Abu Sayyaf were American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, Sobero’s Filipina girlfriend Maria Fe Rosadeno and Angie Montealegre, also a Filipina. — With reports from Sandy Araneta, Jaime Laude, Roel Pareño