Security tightened for Pentagon leader to foil rescue plan

KORONADAL CITY — The police have tightened security at the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Hospital following reports that the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom group is planning to rescue its leader who was wounded and arrested in a remote village in Lambayong, Sultan Kudarat last Friday.

The Pentagon leader, Saidona Camlon, alias Kumander Aidon, is in critical condition at the provincial hospital.

Superintendent Willie Dangane, chief of the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG), said Camlon resisted arrest by firing at them with his caliber .38 pistol. 

Dangane said he and his men, accompanied by Sultan Kudarat and Lambayong policemen, were about to serve a warrant of arrest to Camlon for a car theft case.

Senior Superintendent Paniares Adap, Sultan Kudarat police director, said the security alert at the hospital was upon the orders of Chief Superintendent Danilo Mangila, Central Mindanao police director.

Adap said Mangila expressed apprehension that Camlon’s cohorts might spring him out of the hospital.

While being rushed to the hospital, Camlon reportedly admitted that he was one of those who ambushed and killed the group of Chief Inspector Joselito Cabang in a remote village in Paglas, Maguindanao a few years ago.

Cabang and his men reportedly went to Paglas town after they received a supposed letter from Pentagon leader Tahir Alonto, expressing his desire to surrender.

Alonto, together with five of his henchmen, was believed killed in an encounter with a combined force of the Army’s 604th Infantry Brigade and the Moro Islamic and Liberation Front last year.