By Rexcel Sorza, IOL Correspondent

ILOILO CITY, Philippines, August 16 (IslamOnline.net) - The testimony of a junior officer of the Philippine military in a hearing on their failed putsch last month that he was ordered to lob grenades at mosques in the southern Philippine city of Davao, is a vindication on the part of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which was accused of carrying out the said attacks.

“It’s now becoming clearer and more clearer that what’s happening in Mindanao, most if not all of the incidents similar to that of the bombings in Davao, General Santos and in other parts of Mindanao, have been perpetrated by the military themselves and the MILF has nothing to do [with those bombings],” Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesperson told IslamOnline.net Friday, August 15. "We are vindicated," he stressed.

Philippine Army Captain Milo Maestrecampo told a five-member commission tasked by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to look into the failed putsch last Wednesday that he was ordered by his battalion commander to form a team to “throw grenades” at the mosques. However, did not obey the “unlawful order.”

He said that as commander of the 19^th Scout Rangers Company, he was “tasked verbally by my battalion commander” to “prepare a special ops and this is to throw grenades (at) the mosques. These are the mosques which exploded” at dawn of April 3. He declined to name the commander saying “he is a good man who was only ordered by our superiors.”

He reiterated the same testimony Thursday during the Senate hearing, still on the failed putsch that took place last July 27, adding that his fellow junior officer, 1Lieutenant Jose Enrico Demetrio Dingle, was given a similar order but also declined. 

On April 3, a few hours after the bombing of Sasa wharf took place, which killed 16 and injured 57, three mosques were lobbed with grenades. The mosques in Tibungco in the north, Boulevard in the downtown area and Sirawan in the south, which brought minor damages like shattered windows.

Maestrecampo implicated former Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces chief, Brigadier General Victor Corpus, who he said was in Davao City during the bombings. He said that if Corpus was not there to supervise the carrying out of the bombings, then he is “incompetent not to have known it under his nose.” 

Corpus told IslamOnline.net Friday that he maintains his earlier statement denying the allegation of the junior officers, who staged a failed mutiny and are detained while facing charges before civil and military courts and Congressional hearings.

In saying that the allegation that he or the military orchestrated the Davao bombings “not true,” Corpus said he is willing to be called by any body to shed light on the allegation lodged against him. He also dared Maestrecampo and other officers accusing him "to take a lie-detector test conducted by an international organization."

The Filipino army is accused of committing atrocities in Davao

Corpus, together with Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and Philippine National Police chief Hermogenes Ebdane, were asked by the junior officers to step down from power during the July 27 mutiny, where the young soldiers holed themselves up in Makati financial business district. Corpus resigned from his post days after the unsuccessful putsch.

The young officers were also challenged by the chief of the Task Force Davao to prove their allegations that the body tasked to look into the bombings “suppressed” evidences.

“As far as I am concerned, Task Force Davao has not and will not suppress any evidence on anything,” Col. Gaudencio Pangilinan, TF Davao commander, said, in reaction to Navy Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes’s testimony before the Senate that he heard reports Task Force Davao was “suppressing evidence” on the Davao bombings.

The MILF was blamed for Davao’s April 3 Sasa wharf bombing and the March 4 Davao International Airport bombing that killed 38 and left scores of wounded civilians.

Deceased MILF chairman Salamat Hashim and other key leaders were criminally indicted for the bombing of Sasa wharf and international airport.

Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte then said he would step down from his post if the MILF leaders are acquitted of the charges. Reacting to the statements of the soldiers, he said they have to prove their allegations saying he maintains his allegation against the MILF.

In filing the charges of multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder, the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group said it included the MILF leaders for having overall command of two of the suspects, Esmael Mamalangkas and Totoh Esmael Akmad.

Also charged for the same were Ghazali Jaafar, vice chairman for political affairs; MILF chairman Al Haj Murad, who was then the vice chairman for military affairs; and spokesman Eid Kabalu.

Kabalu said: “We maintain that we have nothing to do with the bombings because the MILF being a mass-based organization is bound to protect our people. We do not kill our people. Even our enemy, if they don’t shoot us, we don’t shoot them. Ours is only self defense.”

“Its now becoming crystal clear that all these incidents happening around us were perpetrated by the military who oppose the peace process because they wanted to continue hang on the situation because it is within the situation that they could enrich themselves, exploit the situation they get ranks all personal aggrandizement,” he further stressed.