The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) casted doubts on the veracity of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) claim that their prisoner a so-called Indonesian bomb expert named Rohmat, is indeed a high ranking Jemaah Islamiyah member. 

According to Ka Willy Marbella, spokesperson of KMP, “there is something fishy going on here. First off, we would expect a highly trained Abu Sayyaf or a JI operative at that, to have more mettle after being caught, but it seems that right after his ‘capture’ Rohmat already ‘confessed’ without even resisting. Second,  it seems that all that Rohmat aka Zaki, is saying is also what the AFP wanted and third if he was caught in Maguindanao, why would his difficulty speaking Tagalog be a problem, it is not even the native tongue in the area?”

“Add to this the fact that the so-called Valentine’s day bombers themselves readily ‘confessed’ when they were also ‘captured’ leads us to believe that there is a motive for all these recent ‘captures’ and ‘confessions’. All of the so-called Abu Sayyaf and JI  captives seems to be talking from a prepared script and the AFP is their script writer. All these guys are actors or patsys at best, it explains why they can afford to smile when being presented to media” added he peasant leader.

“This all stinks of a set-up but to what end? The most logical reasoning would point us that the supposed constant terror threat, ‘arrests’ and ‘confessions’ are orchestrated to spread the feeling of terror and fear on the populace and justify the implementation of the Anti-Terror Bill and the National ID system,” added Marbella.

“It would seem that this would be ending that they want for their movie-like portrayal of terrorism in the Philippines,” said Marbella. # # #  
 

KMP - 23 March 2005