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He said he got his info from an insider.
“On Monday, February 23, Mindanao-based priest Fr. Eliseo Mercado stood by his claim that the government may have paid off the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for the return of Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) weapons recovered from the site of a clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao,” reports GMA News Online.
Mercado explained that his informant “has close ties” with the field commander of the 105th MILF Base Command in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) has tagged Mercado’s claim as “malicious misinformation.”
On his Facebook page, Mercado also said that “the payment may have even gone up to P190,000 per firearm surrendered.”
The encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Jan 25 left 44 members of the elite Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) dead. The PNP-SAF troopers had been out to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias “Marwan” and Filipino bomb maker Abdul Basit Usman. Both men had bounties on their heads placed by the U.S. government: US$5 million for Marwan and US$1 million for Usman.
The operation turned bloody when members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they had to fight back because the PNP-SAF had breached their territory. They alleged that they had not been informed about the operation to get Marwan and Usman. The hostile encounter lasted 11 hours. The MILF lost 18 of their fighters.
Both the government and the MILF are currently doing probes on the Mamsapano encounter to determine what went wrong, as the incident threatens the Bangsamoro peace deal.
