MILF steps into abduction of 6-year-old GenSan boy

GENERAL SANTOS CITY — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has stepped into the four-month kidnapping case of a six-year-old boy.

The move was apparently prompted by the mysterious disappearance of a brother-in-law of MILF chairman Hashim Salamat and five other people, who might have had personal knowledge of the Aug. 8 kidnapping of Stewart "Taichi" Aparejo.

Ustadz Muammar Biston, Salamat’s father-in-law who came over from Marawi City, said the MILF leader has instructed MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu to send a team to this city to check the veracity of the reported abduction.

Biston, whose eldest daughter, Zenaida, is married to Salamat, said the team arrived last week to gather information which will be submitted to the MILF committee on the cessation of hostilities.

Representatives of the committee, in turn, will take up the team’s findings with police authorities and local officials in a meeting scheduled this week.

At a hastily convened press conference Monday in the office of city engineer Nonoy Pareja, Biston claimed that his only son, Omar, 27, has been missing along with a certain Bienvenido Lastimosa who had lent him a motorbike.

"Ang pinagtatakahan ko ay bakit hanggang ngayon si Omar at ang hiniram niya na motor ay hindi na namin makita matapos na damputin sila ng di nakikilalang armadong grupo (What bothers me is why Omar and the motorbike that he borrowed could not be located after an unidentified armed group snatched them)," Biston told newsmen.

If Omar had indeed violated some laws or committed a crime, then Omar’s keepers have to present him alive and file formal charges against him, Biston said.

Biston also wondered why after the kidnapping, several persons like Ariel Paraiso and Manny Gallana went missing.

Recently, Tata Mascarinas and a certain Pardo also mysteriously disappeared after their names surfaced in the police investigation as possible witnesses.

Paraiso was last seen driving a bicycle with a certain Aparejo, while Gallana, alleged to be the lover of the boy’s mother, Helen, was held by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)-Region 12 for questioning.

Gallana, who had volunteered to negotiate with the kidnappers, was released later, but now he, too, is reportedly nowhere to be found.

Sources said the negotiations did not push through, and Gallana instead pocketed the P20,000 supposed ransom.

Biston said he also took the opportunity to clear the name of his son whom the police tagged as a "possible suspect."

"Omar could have just been used by the kidnappers because of his connections with some Moro rebel commanders," he said.

Biston offered to help solve the case and use his clout as an Islamic religious leader to secure the boy’s freedom.

"Pero hindi ito katulad sa lumabas na report na swapping na mangyayari lang kung ilalabas nila si Omar (But this is contrary to the report that there would be a swapping if they would release Omar)," Biston said.

He recalled that he had been the official negotiator in two kidnapping cases in Marawi City — one involving employees of the Mindanao State University, and the other, an employee of the Hall of Justice.

Meanwhile, Pastor Bebs Signar, of the Pentecostal Church, is wondering why the CIDG released Gallana, who was tagged by the boy’s family as the prime suspect.

Signar said the boy’s relatives still have no idea as to who really kidnapped him and where he is being kept now.