DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/07 September) – Operators of interprovincial buses have been asked to observe a long-standing agreement to get passengers only at terminals to prevent the occurrence of violence in the highways, as the Army and the police nationwide placed themselves on high alert after the killing Saturday of an alleged Abu Sayyaf leader and two of his companions.
Yusop Jimlani, chief of the Davao City Overland Transport Terminal, said the alert was raised nationwide even though the incident happened in Sulu, an island province south of Zamboanga City in Western Mindanao.
But Jimlani said they could not really oblige the operators to observe the security measure.
In a press conference Monday in a mall here he said that small bus operators continued to defy the agreement “because they said they have to earn also”.
“It’s really a tough decision to make,” Jimlani, a retired Army colonel who served as deputy commander of Task Force Davao, he admitted.
Jimlani said the agreement was forged after the bombings of the airport and seaport here in
March and April 2003, respectively, that left 48 dead and nearly 200 others wounded.
The DCOTT has also tapped and trained the people earning a living in the terminal, including the porters and small stall owners, to spot suspicious-looking persons and unattended baggage.
“We started to train these people after the Valentines’ Day bombing in 2005, where a young boy died atop an unexploded 60 millimeter mortar shell,” he said.
The boy was hit by another mortar hidden among a pile of egg trays.
Jimlani, however, said that the strict checkup at the terminal was a routine activity and it was only after the Saturday killing of the three alleged Abu Sayyaf members that the entire island was placed on alert status.
Among those killed in the reported encounter in Maimbung, Sulu was Gafur Jumdail, said to be the brother of Umbra Abu Jumdail, an alleged Abu Sayyaf leader in Sulu.
The city’s terminal dispatches daily an average of 700 buses bound for several provinces in Mindanao’s northern and southern regions. (MindaNews)
