RP officers may face trial over Abu Sayyaf

RP officers may face trial over Abu Sayyaf

MANILA (Agencies): A Philippine lawmaker on Friday raised the
prospect of court-martial after Congress found "strong evidence"
that several military officers colluded with the Abu Sayyaf
kidnap gang.

The Moro guerrilla group had slipped through a military cordon
in the southern island of Basilan on June 2 when cornered inside
a hospital with 20 U.S. and Filipino hostages, triggering the
congressional inquiry.

Senate defense committee chairman Ramon Magsaysay said he had
found "strong evidence there might be some collusion between some
military officers and those involved in the kidnapping and
possible ransom" of hostages.

"I am afraid we might even go for a court martial," he said in
a television interview.

The counterpart committee at the House of Representatives
continued its public hearings on the Basilan debacle on Friday,
where the officers implicated insisted that testimonies linking
them with the kidnappers were false.

"We are hoping against hope that the military is not involved"
with the gunmen, who are still holding American Christian
missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and 16 Filipinos. A
third American captive, Guillermo Sobero, is presumed dead.

President Gloria Arroyo declined comment on the initial
findings of the congressional investigations, but told reporters:
"Let me tell you, it's demoralizing the military."

Magsaysay and other senators heard testimony on Thursday from
Basilan residents about how the Abu Sayyaf escaped with many of
their hostages from a military cordon around a hospital and
church they occupied in the town of Lamitan.

Meanwhile, the Philippines' two largest Moro rebel groups,
which have fought separately for self-rule, will merge to help
achieve lasting peace in the troubled southern region of
Mindanao, a former rebel leader said Friday.

In August, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro
National Liberation Front reached a "unity agreement" ending more
than two decades of rivalry in a move they say will boost their
autonomy campaign.

"This is unity for stability, unity for sustained development
and unity for lasting peace," MNLF leader Parouk Hussin told the
Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

"For the time being, we will maintain two structures, but
eventually we will form one single body to represent us in all
international fora, including the Islamic Conference
Organization," Hussin said.

He said the move was in response to the "collective desire of
the membership of the OIC for us to have a common position for
justice, for progress and for development, and this is exactly
what we are doing now."