By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: November 14, 2007
MANILA: Philippine officials said Wednesday that the congressman killed in a bombing outside the House of Representatives had once been a member of Abu Sayyaf, the Qaeda-linked insurgents fighting for a separate Muslim state in the southern Philippines, before he switched loyalties and began supporting the government in Manila.
Representative Wahab Akbar died soon after the explosion late Tuesday, which also claimed the lives of a lawmaker’s driver and a congressional staffer.
The police said Akbar was apparently the target of the blast, which occurred a few minutes after Congress adjourned around 8 p.m. Tuesday.
“We already found parts of the bomb, and it was detonated by a cellphone,” Geary Barias, the Manila police chief, told reporters Wednesday. He said the phone and the bomb may have been attached to a motorcycle parked near the entrance of the building.
Among the 11 people wounded in the attack were Representative Pryde Henry Teves, who remained in critical condition Wednesday, and Representative Luzviminda Ilagan, whose injuries were not life-threatening.
Akbar was a member of Abu Sayyaf in the 1990s before playing a significant role in a U.S.-supported campaign to eradicate them, Barias told reporters. As a lawmaker, Akbar had denied ever being an Abu Sayyaf member and had frequently called the group un-Islamic.
The interior secretary, Ronaldo Puno, told reporters that initial clues were “pointing away from a terrorist attack and more of a directed assault on a certain individual.”
“There were threats on the life of Akbar,” he said. “The indications are that that was the case both in terms of location of the bomb and the manner it was set off.”
Akbar and his family have long dominated the politics of Basilan, a poor island province in the south where he served as governor before becoming a congressman. He made many enemies, not least of them Abu Sayyaf members whom he helped drive from his island with the help of the U.S. military, said Jose Torres Jr., an expert on Abu Sayyaf and author of “Into the Mountain: Hostaged by the Abu Sayyaf.”
The bombing, the first in the history of the Philippine Congress, came on the eve of a congressional committee’s deliberation on an impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. On Wednesday, the committee threw out the complaint, thus shielding Arroyo from impeachment for the next 12 months.
Arroyo condemned the attack Wednesday. “Justice must be served and the law upheld,” she said in a statement.
She offered a reward of 5 million pesos, or about $116,000, for information on the bombers.
Arroyo condemned the attack Wednesday. “Justice must be served and the law upheld,” she said in a statement.
Yeah right. The people’s stand against corruption was justified when she had Estrada pardoned. The law was upheld when she nullified the courts by doing so. That is what a strong republic is all about.
What if, and I say only what if… her supporters did it and not the ASG? That means she’s giving away 5M of people’s money to her own supporters right? Nice for a cash gift don’t you think?