In "Bombs Away Part 1" I had offered a fair amount of information about the BIAF, or Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the armed wing of the MILF and its fund raising schemes. Certain Base Commands, as the BIAF's basic military formation is known, concentrate their fund raising activities in certain niche industries. For the 113 Base Command, whose AOR, or Area of Responsibility (as in "Area of Operation") encompasses all three provinces on the Zamboanga Peninsula:
1) Zamboanga del Sur
2) Zamboanga del Norte
3) Zamboanga Sibugay
along with a sliver of Lanao del Norte Province adjoining the peninsula concentrates its efforts in KFR, or Kidnapping for Ransom. Likewise, the 114 Base Command, whose AOR encompasses all of Basilan Province and many of the small islands sublimated to Zamboanga City, in Zamboanga del Norte Province. Ditto for the infamous Kumander Bravo and his 102 Base Command in Lanao del Norte Province, who is at least smart enough not to soil his own bed, concentrating his Kidnapping activities in the adjoining province of Lanao del Sur in partnership with the Mayor of Marawi City.
Other Base Commands dabble in KFR as well, but concentrate their efforts in Extortion and Protection Rackets. Some have found this activity so lucrative that they have opted out of the insurgency and instead enjoy rather comfortable lives. Both they and their comrades that are still fighting the good fight target a particular businessman, corporation or municipality and begin with a hand delivered letter outlining their demands. The process maybe repeated up to two more times but if payment isn't forthcoming the gloves quickly come off.
On June 1st, 2011 a vendor of Balut, that quinessential Filipino street food got, the suprise of her life when she noticed an unfamiliar box that had been mysteriously placed under her cart outside of Tacurong City's Fitmart Department Store in Sultan Kudarat Province. Though business was brisk with it being 645PM and the after dinner crowd miling about her downtown stall, the vendor remembered that she had seen a woman customer lay the box on the ground as she ordered a couple of the fertilised duck eggs marinated in rice vinegar. Believing that the woman customer had climbed aboard a bus at the adjacent busstop she thought it best if she looked for some identifying feature on the package.
Unable to discover anything of note the vendor opened the package only to find herself staring at two powerful IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices (as in "bombs"). Both fashioned out of 81MM mortar shells with alarm clock triggers and utilising 9Volt batteries for a charge, she immediately began screaming. Attracted by the commotion which nearly precipitated a stampede two police offices from the CPO, or City Police Office, investigated and immediately began ushering people away from the immediate area.
Fitmart has been targetted for Extortion throughout the MILF/BIAF AOR since the late 1990s. On April 22nd, 2002 the Fitmart in General Santos City was targetted by a motorcycle bomb. Rigged in a triksiad, the most basic form of Philippine public transportation (an offroad motorcycle encased inside an aluminum framed shell that supports two bench seats with an extra wheel, like a sidecar), the powerful IED killed 15 and wounded 60. BIAF member Abdulbasit Usman was nabbed for the General Santos bombing in June of 2002 in of all places...Tacurong City. However he wasn't kept under wraps for long having escaped from police custody in October of that same year.
As for this most recent targeting of Fitmart, on June 1st, near midnite the CPO in conjunction with the Sultan Kudarat PPO, or Police Provincial Office, arrested Mokamad Mantungan in connection with the bomb under the Balut vendor's table. Of course the vendor had sworn up and down that it had been a woman who had left the box but Philippine Law Enforcement doesn't consider such inconsistincies to be relevant. A warm body usually does the trick though a cold, dead body is often just as acceptable. Mr.Mantungan ended up being released on June 14th after Prosecutors admitted that there was absolutely nothing connecting him to the bomb. The police however insist he is the culprit while admitting that not a shred of evidence supports their absolute certainty. I love the following quote given the overall context:
"There are some indications he was privy to the attack." I would love to hear about those "indications." I am sure one major "indication" was that he is a "Muslim." Despite its name, Sultan Kudarat Province is over whelmingly a Christian province.
Saturday night, June 18th, 2011 was much like any other Saturday Night at the Starlight Videoke Bar in Tacurong City's Barangay Buenaflor, in Sultan Kudarat Province, except for the almost total lack of customers. The T'boli Tribal women working there were talking amongst themselves, hoping that business would pick up. Located on National Hiway, the establishment usually did a brisk business.
At 845PM a powerful IED, fashioned from an 81MM mortar shell with a Nokia cellphone trigger detonated, wounding five employees:
1) Elenita Molan Alesna, age 45, of Barangay Apong in General Santos City in Sarangani Province
2) Noraida Tabon Lagiya, age 26, from the municipality of T'boli in South Cotabato Province
3) Glaiza Juan Caday, 19, of T'boli in South Cotabato Province
4) Noraya Raiza, 23 of T'boli, South Cotabato Province
5) Rosalie Lakim, aged 32 of Tacurong City's Barangay Fatima
June 21st, 2011, the AFP responded to intelligence that had unknown men frequently entering and leaving a home in the municipality of S.K.Pendatun in Maguindanao Province. Upon searching the domicile the PNP, or Philippine National Police (all police at any level are part and parcel of the PNP) discovered a small cachet. Two IEDs were discovered, fashioned out of RPG, or Rocket Propelled Grenade rounds. The MILF manufactures its own RPG rounds for the BIAF. Most arecountergeit BM40 shells. The charges were not attached but the cellphone triggers were showing that the devices were about to be transported for deployment. Additional IED components and a single round for an M203 rifle grenade launcher. 6ID's EOD disposed of the two IEDs via controlled detonation with a Phased Water Cannon, or PWC.
Very interestingly both the AFP, via the 6ID spokesperson AND DIPO-West Commanding Officer, Felicimo Khu insisted that the materiel was the handiwork of...Abdul Basit Usman. The problem with that however is that the US claims to have killed Usman in a UAV strike. UAV, or Unmanned Air Vehicle, are employed for surveillance, intelligence gathering, AND targeted killings. The Americans claim that Usman was an unintended bonus from an attack against a member of the Pakistani Taliban's hierarchy. Ustadz Mohiden Usman was a member of the MILF/BIAF attached to the group's Da'awah Center in the municipality of Sultan Kudarat (not to be confused with the province bearing that very same name), in Maguindanao Province. He was nabbed by the AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines in 2004 after which he disappeared and is presumed to have been a victim of Extra Judicial Killing.
The AFP and PNP refuse to buy into the American narrative and continue accusing Basit Usman in most bombings.
On June 27th, 2011 at 10AM the Crossing Dukay (Dukay Bridge) checkpoint, in Sultan Kudarat Province's municipality of Esperanza, located in Barangay Crossing Dukay was being extremely vigilant. AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines assets within the MILF/BIAF had revealed a short term plan to bomb Cotabato City in North Cotabato Province. Moreover, just that morning two bombs had detonated in Koronadal City. Manned by PNP, or Philippine National Police from Sultan Kudarat PPO and the PRO-12 PSC, or Police Regional Office for Region 12's Public Safety Company (formerly the PMG, or Police Mobile Group) were going over each and every vehicle with a fine tooth comb. As the vehicles made their way through the line at the foot of the bridge the officers manning the checkpoint must have groaned outloud after seeing the Toyota Hi-Ace passenger van inching towards them. Piled high with sacks of bananas it would not be one of their easier inspections. Still, traversing the Tacurong City to Koronadal City route meant that the vehicle was highly suspect even if apparently empty.
Lo and behold, midway through the inspection two sacks of bananas were found to be concealing IEDs. One was fasioned from a 60MM mortar shell while the other utilised an 81MM mortar shell. The 60MM device utilised four AA batteries as a charge while the 81MM device used a 9Volt battery. Neither device was outfitted with their cellphone triggers. PRO-12 EOD, the Explosives and Ordnance Division was called on to safely dispose of both IEDs.
That morning, June 27th, at 820 AM an IED had, as I mentioned above, detonated in Kidipawan City in North Cotabato Province. Placed by the gate in front of the CoA, or Committee of Audit in Barangay Amas blowing up a COTELCO (Cotabato Electric Cp-operative) but failing to injure anyone. Given the time of day it is a miracle that nobody was maimed or killed. Usually there is a line waiting to get into the CoA entrance for its 9AM opening. Moreover, the site is immediately adjacent to TESDA, or Technical Education Skills and Development Authority, which itself is usually faced with a crowd waiting to get in.
6ID Spokesperson, Colonel Prudencio Asto made the amazing claim that CIDG-12, or Central Investigation and Detection Group for Region 12, actually has Basit Usman in custody! Of course CIDG-12 said the opposite. The Mayor of Kidapawan City, Rodolfo Gatuangco, admitted that the town was facing an extortion attempt by a group calling itself al Khobar. The original al Khobar was composed of MILF/BIAF and MNLF/BMA (BMA being the Bangsamoro Army, the armed wing of the MNLF). It was decimated after successive AFP and PNP operations against it. Nowadays a sub-Kumander from the BIAF's 105 Base Command utilises the group's name in its fund raising activities.
Sub-Kumander Zabide "Bedz" Abdul remained with the MILF/BIAF after Kumander Ustadz Ameril Ombra Kato, the Commanding Officer of the 105 fell out of odds with the MILF Central Committee in late 2009 and went off to form the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, or BIFF. Commanding a camp in the municipality of S.K.Pendatun's Barangay Pawas in the infamous Liguasan Marsh, Abdul now serves under the 105's new Kumander, Zacarias Goma.
Mayor Gatuangco has faced al Khobar before. In late 2007 the city was targeted by al Khobar and Gatuangco paid them off. That is not unusual in the least, there isn't a municipal government in Central Mindanao that isn't paying Protection money or else mired in negotiations to do so. What IS unusual though is that Mayor Gatuangco publicly admitted he was doing so. Gatuangco claimed that he did so out of his own pocket (suuuuuure) and only then because he wanted to entrap the group. Depositing the cash in an acct based in Zamboanga Sibugay Province he admits that he was never able to trace what should have been a very simple trail. In Janurary of 2008 the Kidapawan City Council issued a Proclamation lauding Mayor Gatuangco for a "selfless" act. Not everyone was happy though; Councilor Gregory Yarra labeled the Mayor's "initiative" as "immoral" and would only serve to whet the tongue of criminals who would now continue in their Extortion. Councilor Yarra incidently was then serving as Chairman of the City Council Committee on Good Governance.
On June 29th, 2011, with nerves on edge after the recent bombings an alert citizen became very concerned when he noticed a black motorcycle that had been seemingly abandoned behind Koronadal City's old city hall, in South Cotabato Province. With motorcycle bombs being all too common on Mindanao the CPO, or City Police Office, deployed a bomb sniffing K9 to examine the motorcycle and immediate area around it. Upon arrival the dog alerted almost immediately and the handler radiod in for a general evacuation and an EOD to be deployed. In the end a single 45 caliber round was found in the motorcycle's storage box.
Showing posts with label 102 Base Command. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 102 Base Command. Show all posts
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Kidnap for Ransom,Second Quarter of 2011,Part III: American Citizen Milton Strowell Taylor
Milton "Sam" Strowell Taylor, a 63 year old American retiree from Ohio was dreaming of a better life when he arrived on Mindanao in early December, 2010. Like a suprisingly large number of American vistors to the island Mr.Taylor came in search of...buried treasure. Beginning in the very late 1960s enterprising con artists and people of questionable character began manufacturing stories usually centering on buried Japanese Gold.
The usual spiel is that a horde of "Yamashita's Gold" has been found. General Tomoyuki"Tiger of Malaya"Yamashita raped and pillaged all over Southeast Asia before shipping all the gold and jewels he had "confiscated" to Manila by way of Singapore. Once in the Philippines the war took a turn for the worse and so as Yamashita began retreating ahead of Allied troops he began depositing cachets in out of the way places, for retrieval in better times. Unfotunately for the General, Japan got its as* handed to them and Yamashita was captured. Worse still, he was branded a War Criminal (I hate when that happens) and was put on trial. Predictably General Yamashita was found guilty and on February 23, 1946 he was executed at Los Banos Prison Camp in Metro Manila.
While Mindanao WAS occupied, AND brutalised, by the Japanese during WWII, Yamashita never touched its shores. His legendary fighting retreat took place in Luzon. This is well worth mentioning because Yamashita is the name most often attached to supposed cachets of gold bullion, silver ingots and nickel babbits that enterprising swindlers claim to have discovered. An interesting riff on the theme is an American payroll in the form of Bearer Bonds or T-Notes, en route to USAFE guerilla forces on the island, crashed into an interior mountainside. There the plane and its contents sat undisturbed in the primeval rainforest until its latent discovery by primitive tribesmen with no concept of money, or modern concerns. Personally I find the latter story more believable and therefore I am a bit confused as to why such scammers are perpetually recycling the "gold bullion" nonsense as opposed to the "payroll" tale.
It is believed that the dynamic began on Luzon, indeed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos claimed to have actually located Yamashita's treasure (giving rise to another Urban Legend, "Marcos' Gold." However THIS claim has been largely disproved and rationalised as an alibi for the vast fortune Marcos squirreled away. A fitting sidenote to these Luzon-centric tales is that almost always they involve Negrito Tribesmen. Originally the Negritos were mostly innocent actors, manipulated and duped themselves into portraying the "discovers" of whatever treasure was being peddled. Before long the Negritos themselves wised up and soon negated the role of lowlander middlemen and brokers, directly controlling the scam. I find that information gratifying on a certain level because if any one group should profit from the misery of whitemen it should be those whose land has been stolen BY whites (and in this case EVERYONE BUT NEGRITOS THEMSELVES) and who until the present live so far below the poverty line as to be virtually invisible. Don't get me wrong, I think theft is reprehensible EVEN IF it is entirely driven by the greed of the victim. It is just that I can't help admiring an iota of poetic justice..,
On Mindanao the usual scam involves fake gold ingots. In a very amateurish fashion the thieves take thinly gold plated bars, usually with lead cores, and then pass them off to naïve treasure hunters. To understand how gullible victims are, as heavy as lead may be, it is not nearly as heavy as actual gold. To show it in an even more ridiculous fashion, one recent scam used gold plated aluminum ingots! Aluminum is many more times lighter than steel, which is itself STILL three times as light as pure gold! Yet, after a scratch test which always registers positive for gold, we see person, after person, after person getting conned out of their money.
Just a few weeks ago, on February 28, 2011 a couple in Davao City were lured into such a scam. Despicably it was the wife's own aunt who led them like lambs to the slaughter. Florentino and Mailyn Capuyan allowed themselves to stupidly follow the advice of Marilyn's aunt, Erlinda P.Fernandez. Fernandez knew that the couple were looking into investing their savings and so arranged for the them to get in on a "great deal." After a quick phone call by Marilyn's salivating auntie they were given an address and told to immediately proceed to the home of Inday Mansalita. Ms.Mansalita, a Lumad (member of a Hilltribe, usually Animist) was "brokering" the cachet "discovered by fellow Lumads. Probably trebling with excitement...AND GREED, the couple wasted no time in driving to Malibog District on the outskirts of Davao City and found the Mansalita home.
Having agreed, amazingly on the phone, to buy 1 ingot and a gold Buddha statue for P1.7M (roughly 33,000 US) Florentino intelligenty asked to test the goods before handing over the paperbag full of pesos. When he picked up the ingot, which was manufactured out of an aluminum core, he realised it wasn't genuine (gee, it FINALLY occurred to him) and refused to fork over six times the average annual Mindanowan salary. At that point Inday's 7 male friends popped out with bolos (machetes) and explained that IF the couple didn't want to buy the ingot and statue, that was their perogative. However, their money was staying. To add insult to injury Marilyn had her P6,000 watch, P32,000 worth of jewlery and her P2,500 cellphone taken as well. At least they lived to tell about it, and to charge all the players including Auntie Erlinda.
In kidnap victim Milton Strowell Taylor's case, he was spending months online, chatting up the bottom feeders lurking around treasure hunting websites. These sites are full of con artists and the fish they fry. One person spending a lot of time talking to Mr.Taylor was a man from Lanao del Norte Province. Finally taking the plunge this past December, 2010, Mr.Taylor flew into Cagayan del Oro City, in Misamis Oriental Province, just across the border from Lanao del Norte. Checking into room number 604 at a dive called "Lamar Inn," on the corner of Velez and JR Borja Streets, Mr.Taylor soon did his best to lose his life savings in record breaking time.
Registering as "Sam Taylor" he would spend his days meeting chatmates off of treasure hunting websites, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. On Janurary 12, 2011 he met his "friend" from Lanao del Norte in front of a food stall near Divisoria Mall. The young man who presented himself was in the company of a second man whom he identified as a family member who would be driving them to a promising site. Innocently the very gullible Mr.Taylor joined his 2 new associates for a ride to what he believed would be the municipality of Opol in that same province, Misamis Oriental. Imagine his suprise then when the SUV pulled into the parking lot of a mall in Iligan City, in Lanao del Norte Province. Imagine how much more suprised Mr.Taylor was when told that they would now have to switch vehicles...and oooops, "here's a blindfold to protect my "treasure's" location."
Fast forward to February 11. Mr.Taylor's loving wife back in Ohio notified the US Embassy in Manilla that her husband just phoned her to inform her that he'd been kidnapped and that his captors were threatening to kill him unless their Ransom demand of P10 Million (roughly 225,000 US) was paid promptly. The Embassy, following SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) notified the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, the top echelon of US Law Enforcement and the entity responsible for Americans victimised by crime in foreign nations). The FBI naturally contacted the Cagayan del Oro Police and lo and behold...What does the Cagayan del Oro PNP (Philippine National Police) do? They accuse Mr.Taylor of simply absconding to avoid having to pay a steep hotel bill. The Police Department's Chief, Sr.Supt.Antonio Montalba, reveals his ineptitude and crass unprofessionalism by badmouthing a man he knows nothing about. Making him look even more retarded is the fact that Mr.Taylor's passport was sitting in his room. How many foreigners are going to flee without their passports? A foreigner is unable to board a plane or a ferry without that crucial document. Unless one is aiming to spend the rest of his life growing yams while living in a nipa (bamboo framed thatched hut) they wouldn't be leaving THAT when trying to sneak out on a hotel bill.
How much was this huge bill anyway? It turns out that indeed, by Phillipine standards it was a very expencive tab. The total was P29,100 (roughly 690 US). One needs to understand that 690 US Dollars isn't a lot of money in the United States. The average monthly rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City is close to 2,000 US Dollars. Therefore EVEN IF Mr.Taylor had been carrying his passport, as indeed foreigners always should (it is actually against the law not to do so), why would anyone with the slightest degree of sophistication imagine that person had decided to commit a major crime over such an insubstantial sum of money? One can easily understand why Mayor Emano finds his Chief of Police to be so disgusting.
By March Mr.Taylor's captors had realised that far from popular belief, not ALL Americans had cash puring out of their orifices. The kidnappers, guerillas from the MILF's 102 Base Command, lowered their initial demand of P10M to P300,000 (roughly 6,600 US) and still negotiations continued. After the requsite Proof of Life Videos (whatever happened to Polaroid snapshots of a victim holding a current newspaper) talks progressed more rapidly. At the end of March the negotiators settled on a measly P100,000 (roughly 2,200 US), or what is euphamistically known as a "Lodging Fee," to cover the victim's "Room and Board." At least that was the amount revealed in the media. The actual fee was P2 Million Pesos (roughly 44,000 US).
As a rule of thumb Philippine Authorities never publicly reveal Ransom details. At best they admit to a relatively paltry sum and play it off as the afore mentioned "Lodging" fee, as if victims ate 100,000 Pesos worth of boiled white rice and dried fish over the course of 2 months. In fact, intelligent people never notify the authorities when a loved one is kidnapped. Publicity mearely makes the captive more lucrative and drives up the Ransom. Often enough it is the local officials themselves, including local PNP (Philippine National Police) that have orchestrated the kidnappings. As I mentioned in a First Quarter 2011 entry on Kidnapping, a whole roster of local officials in Cotabato City have been charged in the Tsinoy (Chinese-Filipinos) Kidnappings that have plagued the city over the last 3 decades. None other than that municipality's local warlord, Vice Mayor Muslamin Sema found himself being criminally charged.
Mr.Taylor however can now try and put the whole sordid affair behind him. On April 4th, 2011 on the borders of Balo- and Marawi City, Lanao del Sur Province, the MILF handed a gaunt and pale Mr.Taylor to a slew of local officials led by Marawi's mayor who himself has been fingered (but not charged) in a rash of kidnappings affecting that part of yje island. Taken to Amai Pakpak Hospital in Marawi City for the requisite once over, he was then driven to Cagayan del Oro City for the (likewise) requisite photo opportunity in Mayor Emano's office. After the cameras were turned off the FBI took custody of a bewildered Mr.Taylor, poorer but at least alive.
The usual spiel is that a horde of "Yamashita's Gold" has been found. General Tomoyuki"Tiger of Malaya"Yamashita raped and pillaged all over Southeast Asia before shipping all the gold and jewels he had "confiscated" to Manila by way of Singapore. Once in the Philippines the war took a turn for the worse and so as Yamashita began retreating ahead of Allied troops he began depositing cachets in out of the way places, for retrieval in better times. Unfotunately for the General, Japan got its as* handed to them and Yamashita was captured. Worse still, he was branded a War Criminal (I hate when that happens) and was put on trial. Predictably General Yamashita was found guilty and on February 23, 1946 he was executed at Los Banos Prison Camp in Metro Manila.
While Mindanao WAS occupied, AND brutalised, by the Japanese during WWII, Yamashita never touched its shores. His legendary fighting retreat took place in Luzon. This is well worth mentioning because Yamashita is the name most often attached to supposed cachets of gold bullion, silver ingots and nickel babbits that enterprising swindlers claim to have discovered. An interesting riff on the theme is an American payroll in the form of Bearer Bonds or T-Notes, en route to USAFE guerilla forces on the island, crashed into an interior mountainside. There the plane and its contents sat undisturbed in the primeval rainforest until its latent discovery by primitive tribesmen with no concept of money, or modern concerns. Personally I find the latter story more believable and therefore I am a bit confused as to why such scammers are perpetually recycling the "gold bullion" nonsense as opposed to the "payroll" tale.
It is believed that the dynamic began on Luzon, indeed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos claimed to have actually located Yamashita's treasure (giving rise to another Urban Legend, "Marcos' Gold." However THIS claim has been largely disproved and rationalised as an alibi for the vast fortune Marcos squirreled away. A fitting sidenote to these Luzon-centric tales is that almost always they involve Negrito Tribesmen. Originally the Negritos were mostly innocent actors, manipulated and duped themselves into portraying the "discovers" of whatever treasure was being peddled. Before long the Negritos themselves wised up and soon negated the role of lowlander middlemen and brokers, directly controlling the scam. I find that information gratifying on a certain level because if any one group should profit from the misery of whitemen it should be those whose land has been stolen BY whites (and in this case EVERYONE BUT NEGRITOS THEMSELVES) and who until the present live so far below the poverty line as to be virtually invisible. Don't get me wrong, I think theft is reprehensible EVEN IF it is entirely driven by the greed of the victim. It is just that I can't help admiring an iota of poetic justice..,
On Mindanao the usual scam involves fake gold ingots. In a very amateurish fashion the thieves take thinly gold plated bars, usually with lead cores, and then pass them off to naïve treasure hunters. To understand how gullible victims are, as heavy as lead may be, it is not nearly as heavy as actual gold. To show it in an even more ridiculous fashion, one recent scam used gold plated aluminum ingots! Aluminum is many more times lighter than steel, which is itself STILL three times as light as pure gold! Yet, after a scratch test which always registers positive for gold, we see person, after person, after person getting conned out of their money.
Just a few weeks ago, on February 28, 2011 a couple in Davao City were lured into such a scam. Despicably it was the wife's own aunt who led them like lambs to the slaughter. Florentino and Mailyn Capuyan allowed themselves to stupidly follow the advice of Marilyn's aunt, Erlinda P.Fernandez. Fernandez knew that the couple were looking into investing their savings and so arranged for the them to get in on a "great deal." After a quick phone call by Marilyn's salivating auntie they were given an address and told to immediately proceed to the home of Inday Mansalita. Ms.Mansalita, a Lumad (member of a Hilltribe, usually Animist) was "brokering" the cachet "discovered by fellow Lumads. Probably trebling with excitement...AND GREED, the couple wasted no time in driving to Malibog District on the outskirts of Davao City and found the Mansalita home.
Having agreed, amazingly on the phone, to buy 1 ingot and a gold Buddha statue for P1.7M (roughly 33,000 US) Florentino intelligenty asked to test the goods before handing over the paperbag full of pesos. When he picked up the ingot, which was manufactured out of an aluminum core, he realised it wasn't genuine (gee, it FINALLY occurred to him) and refused to fork over six times the average annual Mindanowan salary. At that point Inday's 7 male friends popped out with bolos (machetes) and explained that IF the couple didn't want to buy the ingot and statue, that was their perogative. However, their money was staying. To add insult to injury Marilyn had her P6,000 watch, P32,000 worth of jewlery and her P2,500 cellphone taken as well. At least they lived to tell about it, and to charge all the players including Auntie Erlinda.
In kidnap victim Milton Strowell Taylor's case, he was spending months online, chatting up the bottom feeders lurking around treasure hunting websites. These sites are full of con artists and the fish they fry. One person spending a lot of time talking to Mr.Taylor was a man from Lanao del Norte Province. Finally taking the plunge this past December, 2010, Mr.Taylor flew into Cagayan del Oro City, in Misamis Oriental Province, just across the border from Lanao del Norte. Checking into room number 604 at a dive called "Lamar Inn," on the corner of Velez and JR Borja Streets, Mr.Taylor soon did his best to lose his life savings in record breaking time.
Registering as "Sam Taylor" he would spend his days meeting chatmates off of treasure hunting websites, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. On Janurary 12, 2011 he met his "friend" from Lanao del Norte in front of a food stall near Divisoria Mall. The young man who presented himself was in the company of a second man whom he identified as a family member who would be driving them to a promising site. Innocently the very gullible Mr.Taylor joined his 2 new associates for a ride to what he believed would be the municipality of Opol in that same province, Misamis Oriental. Imagine his suprise then when the SUV pulled into the parking lot of a mall in Iligan City, in Lanao del Norte Province. Imagine how much more suprised Mr.Taylor was when told that they would now have to switch vehicles...and oooops, "here's a blindfold to protect my "treasure's" location."
Fast forward to February 11. Mr.Taylor's loving wife back in Ohio notified the US Embassy in Manilla that her husband just phoned her to inform her that he'd been kidnapped and that his captors were threatening to kill him unless their Ransom demand of P10 Million (roughly 225,000 US) was paid promptly. The Embassy, following SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) notified the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, the top echelon of US Law Enforcement and the entity responsible for Americans victimised by crime in foreign nations). The FBI naturally contacted the Cagayan del Oro Police and lo and behold...What does the Cagayan del Oro PNP (Philippine National Police) do? They accuse Mr.Taylor of simply absconding to avoid having to pay a steep hotel bill. The Police Department's Chief, Sr.Supt.Antonio Montalba, reveals his ineptitude and crass unprofessionalism by badmouthing a man he knows nothing about. Making him look even more retarded is the fact that Mr.Taylor's passport was sitting in his room. How many foreigners are going to flee without their passports? A foreigner is unable to board a plane or a ferry without that crucial document. Unless one is aiming to spend the rest of his life growing yams while living in a nipa (bamboo framed thatched hut) they wouldn't be leaving THAT when trying to sneak out on a hotel bill.
How much was this huge bill anyway? It turns out that indeed, by Phillipine standards it was a very expencive tab. The total was P29,100 (roughly 690 US). One needs to understand that 690 US Dollars isn't a lot of money in the United States. The average monthly rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City is close to 2,000 US Dollars. Therefore EVEN IF Mr.Taylor had been carrying his passport, as indeed foreigners always should (it is actually against the law not to do so), why would anyone with the slightest degree of sophistication imagine that person had decided to commit a major crime over such an insubstantial sum of money? One can easily understand why Mayor Emano finds his Chief of Police to be so disgusting.
By March Mr.Taylor's captors had realised that far from popular belief, not ALL Americans had cash puring out of their orifices. The kidnappers, guerillas from the MILF's 102 Base Command, lowered their initial demand of P10M to P300,000 (roughly 6,600 US) and still negotiations continued. After the requsite Proof of Life Videos (whatever happened to Polaroid snapshots of a victim holding a current newspaper) talks progressed more rapidly. At the end of March the negotiators settled on a measly P100,000 (roughly 2,200 US), or what is euphamistically known as a "Lodging Fee," to cover the victim's "Room and Board." At least that was the amount revealed in the media. The actual fee was P2 Million Pesos (roughly 44,000 US).
As a rule of thumb Philippine Authorities never publicly reveal Ransom details. At best they admit to a relatively paltry sum and play it off as the afore mentioned "Lodging" fee, as if victims ate 100,000 Pesos worth of boiled white rice and dried fish over the course of 2 months. In fact, intelligent people never notify the authorities when a loved one is kidnapped. Publicity mearely makes the captive more lucrative and drives up the Ransom. Often enough it is the local officials themselves, including local PNP (Philippine National Police) that have orchestrated the kidnappings. As I mentioned in a First Quarter 2011 entry on Kidnapping, a whole roster of local officials in Cotabato City have been charged in the Tsinoy (Chinese-Filipinos) Kidnappings that have plagued the city over the last 3 decades. None other than that municipality's local warlord, Vice Mayor Muslamin Sema found himself being criminally charged.
Mr.Taylor however can now try and put the whole sordid affair behind him. On April 4th, 2011 on the borders of Balo- and Marawi City, Lanao del Sur Province, the MILF handed a gaunt and pale Mr.Taylor to a slew of local officials led by Marawi's mayor who himself has been fingered (but not charged) in a rash of kidnappings affecting that part of yje island. Taken to Amai Pakpak Hospital in Marawi City for the requisite once over, he was then driven to Cagayan del Oro City for the (likewise) requisite photo opportunity in Mayor Emano's office. After the cameras were turned off the FBI took custody of a bewildered Mr.Taylor, poorer but at least alive.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Political Developments,Second Quarter of 2010,Part III:The June 3rd Re-Balloting in Lanao del Sur Province
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