Speaking at Camp Agui-naldo during the turnover ceremonies for incoming Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya, Mrs. Arroyo announced that a joint military-police team in Cotabato City had captured the suspects.
Two of them were later identified as Esmael Akmad, alias Totoh, 26, and Jovi Bagundang, alias Fermin and Tohani, 19. Both are from Kabuntalan town in Maguindanao.
Mrs. Arroyo said the suspects were arrested on the strength of a warrant of arrest issued by a Cotabato City judge.
Akmad was cornered by plainclothesmen at a riverside pumpboat dock near the public market in Cotabato City.
Akmad gave up without a fight, and subsequently revealed to investigators the whereabouts of Bagundang, who was arrested at a slum area in Almonte Extension also in that city.
Authorities said the arrest of Akmad and Bagundang also led to the capture of two others, one of them said to be a high ranking leader of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
"We are still trying to tie the loose ends between these arrests. We do not want to unnecessarily put the blame on anybody without any strong evidence linking them to the blasts," a ranking police official told The STAR.
Sources in Davao disclosed Akmad and Bagundang were trusted bodyguards of a ranking MILF leader who frequents the city. Akmad also reportedly has links to Abu Hashim Solaiman, a foreign-trained bomb expert of the MILF.
"This MILF leader frequents Davao City because some of his children have been studying in the city for a long time," a source said.
"We have been tracking these people since the start. It appears that they have used their bodyguards themselves to carry out their mission to sow terror," the same source said.
Sources also disclosed one of the suspects is now under the custody of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).
Another suspect — believed to be the key planner of the attacks — is a trained bomb expert of the MILF’s special operations group, the sources added.
"These suspects are not foot soldiers, they belong to the (MILF) special operations group so they are specifically trained to carry out terror activities," said a police investigator.
The investigator said they are still verifying the claims of one of the suspects that he took part in the planning and up to final stages of the operation when they placed the bomb at Sasa wharf.
The suspect reportedly disclosed how a still unnamed foreigner assembled the bomb, three hours before it exploded at a row of food stalls in front of the ferry terminal.
Police intelligence officials earlier said they are hunting five Indonesians who reportedly carried out the Davao bombings with the help of the separatist MILF guerrillas.
Mrs. Arroyo said the detained men were involved in the bombing of Davao wharf last week that killed 16 people and the bombing of Davao airport last March 4 that left 22 people dead.
The President, however, stopped short of saying there were foreigners involved in the bombings but specifically pointed to Toto as the one who planted the bomb on the wharf.
The arrest of the two suspect came as a "gift" to Abaya in assuming his new post as the new Armed Forces chief, Mrs. Arroyo said.
"General Abaya also comes to his post at a time of terrorism in the world. As Commander of the Southern Command, he was already involved in the Davao blast investigation," she said.
In her speech, Mrs. Arroyo ordered Abaya to "work closely with the Indonesian government," on police intelligence reports linking five Indonesians, allegedly with the regional fundamentalist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), to the Davao blasts.
The JI is regarded as the Southeast Asian front of the al-Qaeda network of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
"The links with al-Qaeda have been given since the beginning," Mrs. Arroyo said, adding that in the past, "Indonesians have also been sighted in terrorist training camps," in Mindanao, apparently referring to camps and strongholds of MILF rebels.
Last Sunday, combined police and military operatives nabbed the alleged brains of the Sasa wharf bombing.
Although the name of the suspect was withheld, sources earlier disclosed he was a ranking MILF leader.
Philippine National Police (PNP) director for intelligence Chief Superintendent Robert Delfin had said the five Indonesians were involved in the Oct. 12, 2002 bombing of a resort in Bali which left almost 200 people dead, about half of them Australians on holiday.
The five Indonesians are suspected members of JI. They were identified only as Nasruddin, Sulaiman, Zulkifli, Haj Akhmad and Hamja.
Delfin said the five were monitored in Central Mindanao before the April 2 bombing of the Davao wharf.
He also confirmed the suspicions of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte that the MILF’s special urban terrorist action group (Sutag) carried out the bomb attack with the help of the five Indonesians.
Duterte earlier warned of more bombings after implicating JI in the wharf and airport blasts.
"It is hard to give people false hopes about what could be when there is already a clear trend of these terrorists wanting to sow terror not only in the city but in almost all parts of the globe," the mayor’s spokesman Wendell Avisado said.
Businessmen in the city led by Romeo Serra, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc., however, called on the lifting of "state of lawlessness."
Following the April 2 bombing at the wharf, Mrs. Arroyo placed Davao under a state of lawlessness, authorizing the military to maintain peace and order in the city.
Serra said they have "strong reservation with the declaration of state of lawlessness because it has an extreme negative impact on the city, especially for us in the business sector," Serra told The STAR.
At least 1,200 soldiers, including a battalion of the Army’s Special Forces, have been deployed in the city since Friday, forming part of the military-led task force in maintaining increased visibility to thwart further terror attempts. – With reports from Jaime Laude, Marichu Villanueva, Edith Regalado, Roel Pareño, John Unson, AFP