and Julieto Sarsaba, all of Initao town in Misamis Oriental, were caught doing surveillance work along the boundaries of Davao del Norte’s Paquibato District and San Fernando, Bukidnon. The rebels alleged that mat peddling was just their cover.
Annabel Pacana, the family members’ spokesperson, told reporters that the six mat peddlers were forewarned by the locals not to enter known rebel strongholds.
“We still don’t understand why they insisted in using that route. All we knew was that they were going only to Davao,” said Pacana.
She posited that from Paquibato District in Davao del Norte, the six peddlers must have traversed through San Fernando, Bukidnon as a shortcut to Misamis Oriental.
“They have been peddling mats for 15 years already. They have no connection whatsoever with the military,” Pacana said.
She also said that although they have not received any word from the NPA, a staff at the mayor’s office at San Fernando town told them that the group that abducted the peddlers was under the command of NPA leader Leoncio Pitao, a.[]
k.a. Kumander Parago.
Pacana said that Defense Secretary Voltaire Gasmin have assured them via text message that all of the peddlers are still alive.
In a statement Friday, the NDF Bukidnon-North Central Mindanao Region said they will release the six mat peddlers “sooner than expected” albeit in a “low profile” manner.
“We have received feelers that soon the six mat peddlers will be released but we will release them in a low profile way. As a humanitarian act, even though we have established that they are suspicious traders in that they were peddling in a very remote area. Why sell in the area when there are hardly any houses here?” the statement reads.
“They have been repeatedly reported to have hounded and harassed our communities by passing themselves off as former NPA comrades and most of the routes they take are the roads usually used by the military whenever they conduct combat operations,” it continues.
The statement also claimed that the six mat peddlers were the same people spotted by the guerillas asking locals names and whereabouts of certain “organizers” of the movement.
In an earlier interview, Lt. Col. Jose Maria Cuerpo, chief of the 8th Infantry Battalion based in Bukidnon, said they do not employ “assets” to do their surveillance and intelligence gathering for them.[]
