Last Saturday’s simulated exercises staged by the military, the police, firefighters and other law enforcement and emergency rescue teams in Oslob town, southern Cebu isn’t a show of force by any stretch of the imagination.
But neither is it insignificant if we are to recall last year’s Abu Sayyaf debacle at nearby Bohol province which stretched for several days and cost the lives of some troopers and a civilian.
At 5 am on April 11 2017, residents of Barangay Napo, Inabanga town reported to police the presence of suspicious looking outsiders on board bancas arriving at their shores.
These men turned out to be Abu Sayyaf bandits who doubtless had heard about the visiting foreign officials that were scheduled to attend Asean trade meetings in Bohol.
These officials presented an attractive target for these bandits whose presence confirmed a US travel advisory warning their citizens against traveling to southern Cebu and other parts of the Visayas due to intelligence reports of terror groups operating there.
Were it not for the vigilance of the Napo residents who spotted them as they made their way to shore and reported it to the authorities, who knows what havoc these bandits would have caused and how many potential victims they harmed in their dangerous caper that eventually cost them their lives.
The Abu Sayyaf intrusion into Bohol, if left unchecked would have also emboldened them to expand their activities to the provinces of Cebu and maybe even Negros Oriental which is still dealing with communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.
The clashes between the military and Abu Sayyaf also exposed the bandit group’s connections to the police as shown by the arrest of Supt. Maria Christina Nobleza of the PNP Crime Laboratory in Davao region and her alleged lover, Reenor Lou Dongon at a military checkpoint in Clarin town, Bohol province on April 22 also last year.
The main lesson derived from the Bohol incident involving the Abu Sayyaf is that there is no substitute for community vigilance and cooperation with the authorities in stopping terror groups even before they inflict their menace on peaceful law-abiding Filipinos.
We hope that the emergency team set up by the Oslob municipal government can work well with both the military, the police and their constituents in securing their area not only from terror groups but from criminal elements who may wish to prey on their local and foreign visitors.
The Bohol case gains critical importance owing to the six-month closure of Boracay which means that Cebu and Bohol provinces can reasonably expect a sizable chunk of tourist traffic in their towns and cities.
Cebuanos should not let their guard down and expect last year’s failure to discourage the Abu Sayyaf or any terror group from making more attempts to victimize tourists this year or at any time in the future.