• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Cadiz City Mayor Salvador Escalante Jr. said on Sunday (March 24) that a group of people from Mindanao, who are claiming to be members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and occupying a property in Barangay Tinampa-an, has agreed to leave after Ramadan.
Escalante said they will to return to Mindanao.
Residents in the area earlier expressed alarm on their presence as some of them were wearing military uniforms.
They even hoisted a flag and placed sandbags around the area, which some likened to a military outpost.
Maintaining that the MNLF does not exist in Negros Occidental, Escalante said he considers the group as a religious movement or a crusade, using the name of MNLF.
“Based on our records, there is no MNLF in Region 6. The MNLF involved in peace talks with the government is in Mindanao,” PCol. Rainerio De Chavez, officer-in-charge of Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, earlier said.
“Our investigation showed that the Muslim group came from another barangay in Cadiz City but they were expelled as the residents filed a petition against them,” he said, adding that the group has been staying in Cadiz City since 2022.
For the city government, “the matter has been resolved,” Escalante said.
There were reports that the group engaged in recruitment of members, who were promised a P40,000 monthly salary, in exchange for a recruitment fee of P10,000.
“We are looking into their reason, why they are in Negros, if they are here to fool people,” De Chavez said.
Lt. Col. Arnel Calaoagan, commander of the Philippine Army’s 79th Infantry Battalion, whose area of operations includes Cadiz City, said that reports on the presence of MNLF turned out to be negative.
They are just pretending to be MNLF members, he added. | GB
