Trailing Hadji Akmad
Bayam
The inclusion of a
Hadji Akmad Bayam in the charge sheet in connection with the bomb blast in
Makilala, North Cotabato last Oct. 10 has generated considerable
controversy. The reason? The Hadji Akmad Bayam included in the Makilala
charge sheet works with the office of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita,
said leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN
REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Is it he, or is it
not he? That, to paraphrase a well-known soliloquy from the great English
poet and playwright William Shakespeare, is the million-dollar question.
The inclusion of a
Hadji Akmad Bayam in the charge sheet in connection with the bomb blast in
Makilala, North Cotabato last Oct. 10 has generated considerable
controversy.
Two separate bombings
occurred in Mindanao on that date. The first took place at early afternoon
in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, wounding four women. The second happened
eight hours later in Makilala, North Cotabato, killing six people and
wounding 29 others.
Also included in the
Makilala charge sheet were Al Haj Murad, chairman of the revolutionary
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); and Kule Mamagong alias Ustadz Kule;
Daud Sarip; Biznar Salahuddin; Atti Lintungan alias Ustadz Atti; Samsudin
Demaalo alias Commander Platon Blah; and Ahmad Akmad Batabol Usman alias
Abdulbasit or Basit Usman; Zahide Abdul alias Zabiri Abdul or Bedz; and
Usman Al Majad – all alleged MILF commanders.
The charge sheet also
included Dulmatin alias Amat Usman and Omar Patek alias Abdul Sheik,
alleged members of the Indonesian-based terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
Dulmatin’s wife, who had been captured previously in Jolo, Sulu, had said
the MILF is linked with the Jemaah Islamiyah – an allegation the group’s
spokesman Eid Kabalu has denied in several media interviews.
In a statement
shortly after the bombing, MILF peace panel chairman Mohagher Iqbal had
said that Murad and Bayam could not possibly be charged in connection with
the same bombing.
“Anyone who is in his
right mind won’t include Hadji Akmad Bayam (on the charge sheet),” said
MILF vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar in a TV interview on Oct. 19,
reiterating Iqbal’s statement.
The reason? MILF
leaders say, citing information they describe as coming from a source in
Malacañang, the Hadji Akmad Bayam included in the Makilala charge sheet
works with the office of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. “He has been
working with Ermita for a long time,” Kabalu told Bulatlat of Bayam,
whom he also described as a former commander of the Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF), another Moro revolutionary group.
This is not the first
time that an official linked to the Arroyo administration has been accused
of involvement in Mindanao bombings.
In July 2003,
dissident soldiers belonging to the Magdalo group cited as one of the
reasons for their armed protest action at the Oakwood Hotel in Makati
City the alleged masterminding by
then Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes of the Davao bombings earlier that
same year. This, the Magdalo soldiers said, was meant to provide a
justification for asking the U.S. for additional anti-“terrorist” funds.
Early the next year, both the government-initiated Maniwang Commission and
the independent Mindanao Truth Commission concluded that a “third party”
was behind the bombings.
Following the
allegations, several prominent Moro personalities – among them Arsad
Solaiman of the Moro Youth for Bangsamoro Genuine Empowerment (MYBGE) and
lawyer Zen Malang of the Bangsamoro Center for Law and Policy – urged
Ermita to make a categorical statement either confirming or denying that
Bayam works with his office.
Bayam’s trajectory
Ten days after the
Makilala bombing, Ermita told media that there is indeed a Hadji Akmad
Bayam working in his office as an assistant secretary. He said he would
check whether the Bayam working for him and the one charged in connection
with the Makilala bombing are the same person.
The following day,
Oct. 21, Ermita said the Bayam included in the Makilala charge sheet is
different from the one who works for him as an assistant secretary.
“How could he be a
bomber?” Ermita said of his assistant secretary. “Akmad Bayam used to be a
Moro National Liberation Front commander. Later he came out of the
organization and I recruited him to join our party, the Lakas-NUCD. I
recently hired him to be one of my technical assistants.”
Ermita, who was
involved in the GRP-MNLF peace talks, said Bayam surrendered to the
government through him shortly before the signing of the Final Peace
Agreement. He later joined the Moro National Rebel Returnees Association (MNRRA),
of which he eventually became chairman.
Bayam’s name had
rarely hit the news since his surrender, although it is known that from
2002 to 2004, Bayam worked with the office of Jose Ma. Rufino, then
presidential liaison officer for political affairs (now deceased). He
resigned from that office in 2004 to run for a congressional seat in his
native Maguindanao, but lost.
Nothing would be
heard from Bayam since then until mid-2005, when he made headlines as
chairman of the Philippine Muslim Solidarity Council (PMSC), a group of
Muslims who had called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down
in the wake of the so-called “Hello Garci” scandal.
The surfacing of the
so-called “Hello Garci” tapes – a series of recorded and allegedly
wiretapped conversations in which a voice similar to Arroyo’s is heard
instructing an election official, whose voice sounds like that of
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to rig
the polls renewed widespread suspicions of fraud in the 2004 presidential
election and revived calls for the president’s removal or resignation from
office.
Among the groups that
emerged in the revitalized campaign for Arroyo’s removal or resignation
from Malacañang was the broad coalition Unity for Truth and Justice,
launched on July 21, 2005. The PMSC took part in this coalition. In fact,
during the group’s inaugural meeting, Bayam was among those nominated to
form a caretaker government that would take over in the event of an Arroyo
removal or resignation.
When former
presidential staff officer Michaelangelo Zuce testified before a
congressional investigation later that same month that there was fraud in
the 2004 election, Bayam – who told of having worked with him in Rufino’s
office – was behind him. That is, until Zuce produced an affidavit saying
it was Bayam who had endorsed Garcillano’s appointment to the Comelec.
He belied this
allegation of Zuce and even accused Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay and
former Internal Revenue Commissioner Liwayway Vinzons-Chato – both
convenors of the Unity for Truth and Justice – of offering him money in
exchange for “helping” them. Chato responded by saying it was actually
Bayam who had asked for money – to the tune of P700,000 – in exchange for
his help.
He then disappeared
from the scene and even his colleagues in the PMSC could not locate nor
even contact him.
Nothing would be
heard from or about Bayam since then until September this year, when
Ermita in media interviews lauded him for his role in the “recovery” of
Grace Gonzales, daughter of Western Mindanao State University (WMSU)
president Dr. Eldigario Gonzales. Grace had been kidnapped a month before
in Zamboanga. In news reports on Grace’s “recovery,” Ermita was quoted as
saying that Bayam was his assistant secretary.
Bombing suspect
A month later, a name
similar to his appears on the charge sheet in connection with the Makilala
bombing.
Bayam has branded as
“malicious” the allegations that he was linked to the Makilala bombing,
and challenged his accusers to face him and swear by the Koran while
making allegations. Ermita has denied the accusation against his assistant
secretary.
Bayam has also talked
of having had a falling-out with the camp of former Defense Secretary
Fortunato Abat, also a convenor of the Unity for Truth and Justice.
MILF leaders swear
that the Bayam charged with multiple murder is the same man working for
Ermita – citing information which they describe as coming from no less
than a source in Malacañang.
The MNLF and the
MILF
During the presidency
of Diosdado Macapagal (1961-1965), Sabah, an island near Mindanao to which
the Philippines has a historic claim, ended up in the hands of the
Malaysian government. His successor Ferdinand Marcos later conceived a
scheme which involved the recruitment of between 28 and 64 Moro fighters
to occupy Sabah.
The reported summary
execution of these recruits in 1968 by their superiors, which Moro
historian Salah Jubair says was due to their refusal to follow orders, led
to widespread outrage among Moros and led to the formation of the MNLF
that same year.
The MNLF, which
fought for an independent state in Muslim Mindanao, entered into a series
of negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP),
beginning in the 1970s under the Marcos government. Conflicts on the issue
of autonomy led to a breakdown of talks between the GRP and the MNLF in
1978, prompting a group led by Dr. Salamat Hashim to break away from the
MNLF and form the MILF. Since then, the MILF has been fighting for an
Islamic state in Mindanao.
In 1996, the MNLF
signed a Final Peace Agreement with the GRP which created the Autonomous
Region of Muslim Mindanao – composed of Sului, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and
Maguindanao – as a concession to the group. That same year, the MILF began
peace negotiations with the GRP. The issue of ancestral domain had emerged
last month as the most contentious issue in the GRP-MILF peace
negotiations, which are being brokered by the Malaysian government. The
MILF is proposing a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity based on an ancestral
domain claim over Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan.
But the government had insisted that any areas to be included to the
Bangsamoro Juridical Entity in addition to the Autonomous Region of Muslim
Mindanao (ARMM) should be subject to “constitutional processes” –
something which, the MILF said, had not come up in any of the signed
documents related to the talks since 1997.
The recent bombings
in Mindanao took place shortly
after the deadlock in the GRP-MILF peace talks over the issue of ancestral
domain. Among the suspects is one Hadji Akmad Bayam. Bulatlat
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