ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Zamboanga City police on Sunday said the principal suspect of the May 29 bombing outside a military base in this city is a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s Special Operations Group (MILF-SOG) based in Central Mindanao.

Senior Supt. Lurimer Detran, officer in charge of this city’s police presented the photograph of the suspect, Salahuddin Hassan, to Mayor Celso Lobregat.

Detran said that Hassan is the brother in law of Moqasid Delna, head of the MILF-SOG, that is based in Camp Darapanan, Sultan Kudarat, and a member of that group.

He disclosed that Hassan was identified by a former MILF member through the artist’s sketch that investigators sent to different intelligence units in Mindanao.

Detran said the statement of the former MILF member, who said the artist’s sketch resembles Hassan, “is credible.”

He did not identify the former MILF member who helped investigators identify Hassan, saying that he is now under the government’s witness protection program.

Hassan has pending criminal cases in court that are related to bombing incidents that had taken place in Central Mindanao, Detran said.

Two people were killed while 21 others were wounded when a bomb exploded near the office of the Air Materiel Wing Savings and Loans Association Inc. (AMWSLAI) located in a building across the Gate 1 of Col. Edwin Andrews Air Base in barangay Santa Maria, this city.

The explosion also destroyed the offices of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid)-funded Alliance of Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (Amore) and the district office of Laban Rep. Maria Isabelle Climaco of Zamboanga City, as well as three vehicles.

Detran said murder and multiple frustrated murders against Hassan have been filed with the local prosecutor’s office.

He said the police will also file a complaint with the joint Committee on Cease-fire and Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) whose members comprise of government and MILF peace panel negotiators.

Meanwhile, Bureau of Jail Management Penology (BJMP) personnel assigned in different BJMP-administered jails in the region took a one-day bomb awareness seminar.

Supt. Esther Pepito, BKMP deputy regional director, disclosed that the bomb awareness seminar was held Friday at the Zamboanga City Reformatory Center (ZCRC) in this city.

Pepito, who is the concurrent ZCRC warden, disclosed that the BJMP personnel were instructed on the materials being used in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and bomb detection.

Pepito said the bomb awareness seminar is aimed at preventing the entry of bomb-making materials into any of the jails in the region, saying that some of the detention centers are vulnerable to bomb attacks.

Pepito said BJMP officials are not discounting the possibility that some of the visitors might try to slip in bomb-making materials in any of the detention facilities in the region to start a jail break.

She cited the case of the ZCRC, where many of the more than 1,000 inmates are suspected to be members of the Abu Sayyaf Group and know how to make homemade bombs.

Emergency powers on food, oil nixed

PRESIDENT Arroyo can still manage escalating oil and food prices with the present presidential authority and has no immediate plans to seek emergency powers, according to chief presidential counsel Sergio Apostol.

LOCAL employers are finding it hard to recruit qualified people to fill in vacancies in health, aviation, construction, technical services, human resources and education industries, a survey by the labor department showed.

SAYING that the case was prematurely filed, the Court of Appeals (CA) has dismissed the petition filed by a group of taxpayers seeking to declare as unconstitutional Executive Order (EO) 683 allocating the P6-billion share of Palawan, from the Camago-Malampaya oil and natural gas project as part of the pork barrel of the governor and the two congressmen of the province.

SENATE Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has opposed any move to extend the term of President Arroyo by using the proposed federal system contained under Joint Resolution 10 that was backed by at least 16 senators.

THE Armed Forces ordered the troops on Sunday to be vigilant against attacks by the New People’s Army (NPA) following the successive operations of rebels against government forces around the country over the weekend.

DAVAO CITY—The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said it would hold mass demonstrations here, including a lakbayan and caravan rally on Tuesday to mark the 20th year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which it criticized as a failure.

A NONGOVERNMENT organization has called on Environment Secretary Lito Atienza and Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman to stop the conversion of agricultural lands into other uses such as tourism and mining.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Zamboanga City police on Sunday said the principal suspect of the May 29 bombing outside a military base in this city is a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s Special Operations Group (MILF-SOG) based in Central Mindanao.