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'They were not Abu Sayyaf'

Chiara Zambrano, ABS-CBN News

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Pending probes, govt still views elderly Petalco couple as ASG. They were lined up for burial today with ASG leader Abu Rami &amp; the 3 others <a href="https://t.co/7A9bN2O8bt">pic.twitter.com/7A9bN2O8bt</a>— Chiara Zambrano (@chiarazambrano) <a href="https://twitter.com/chiarazambrano/status/852844413638238208">April 14, 2017</a></blockquote><script async="" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>They were labeled Caskets 5 and 6 with masking tape and felt pen, and lined up on the grassy lawn of the Inabanga morgue. People were watching a few meters away, not so much to get out of the scorching noonday sun, but to keep distance from the rancid smell of decomposition.Caskets 2 to 4 were already lined up beside them, but only Crisanta and Constancio Petalco&#x27;s caskets were painted with gold trimming. One would think it was to distinguish them from the rest, but out from the morgue&#x27;s storage came Casket 1, with the same gold lining.&quot;Yan naman si Abu Rami,&quot; said a funeral worker.And there they lay, six white caskets of people who shared the same fate, and until now, the same branding. To the military and the police, they are the members of the Abu Sayyaf killed after they entered Sitio Ilaya, Barangay Napo, in Inabanga, Bohol, all the way from Sulu.At a corner of the morgue, three elderly ladies wept behind their surgical masks. They were Natividad, Marcosa, and Isabel Petalco, sisters of Constancio. Between sobs, they maintain that their younger brother and his wife are not members of the Abu Sayyaf, and that they were just in their home when the Abu Sayyaf came to their village.&quot;Masakit ang aking nararamdaman para sa aking kapatid,&quot; said Marcosa Petalco Logronio, 69 years old.&quot;Pinatay nila ang nakababata kong kapatid na wala namang kasalanan. Wala silang kasalanang dalawa,&quot; said Isabel Petalco Rotorad, 75 years old.Nieces and nephews of the couple who attended the funeral also came to their defense. Concordia Petalco said the accusation worsened their family&#x27;s anguish. &quot;Hindi man lang kami tinanong ng military, hindi man lang sila nag-interview ng tao para malamang kung terorista ba talaga sila,&quot; she said. Longtime neighbors of the Petalcos echo their sentiments. A number of them borrowed a dumptruck that shuttled them to the local cemetery. They, too, were crying.&quot;Hindi yun totoo, ma&#x27;am,&quot; said Antonieta Cenabre, a resident of Barangay Napo and distant relative of the Petalcos. &quot;Kawawa naman yung dalawa. hindi sila kasali doon. Maliit pa kami, kilala na namin sila, si &#x27;Nong Constancio at Tiya Sani.&quot;<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en">Dispatch from Bohol. 2 of the 6 believed to be Abu Sayyaf buried today. Family, neighbors deny that the elderly Petalco couple are ASG. <a href="https://t.co/9mc8HBtAyb">pic.twitter.com/9mc8HBtAyb</a>— Chiara Zambrano (@chiarazambrano) <a href="https://twitter.com/chiarazambrano/status/853009779966361600">April 14, 2017</a></blockquote><script async="" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>Constancio and Crisanta were found dead outside their hut after the firefight on Aprill 11, in close proximity to the bodies of three members of the Abu Sayyaf. Abu Rami, the Abu Sayyaf leader, lay just a few meters from Constancio. The police and military said most of the shots of the enemy were coming somewhere from that direction.When the fighting started at around 5 AM, neighbors said the Petalcos retreated into on of their neighbors houses, but eventually returned to their home to secure the animals they had left behind.&quot;Sabi [ng kapitbahay], bumalik sila kahit sinabihan ng military huwag, kasi sisilipin yung mga alaga nila,&quot; Cenabre said. &quot;Bumalik si &#x27;Nong Constancio. Sabi niya [sa asawa], &#x27;Huwag kang sumama sa akin, ako lang ang magpunta doon. Sabi [ni Crisanta], &#x27;Sama ako.&#x27; Hinabol niya. Dalawa sila, binalikan yung baboy, tinipon ang kambing.&quot;Relatives and neighbors have been crying foul over what they say was mistaken identity. Cenabre said Crisanta, who was in her seventies, was already walking with a hunched back, and could no longer even straighten her fingers due to arthritis. It was physically impossible for her to become a fighter, they said.But the military maintains that they have reason to believe the Petalcos could be involved in some way or another.First, they said, the Petalcos are the aunt and uncle of Joselito Melloria, the former resident of Barangay Napo that became a member of the Abu Sayyaf, and is responsible for bringing over some ten other Abu Sayyaf members from Sulu into his former hometown. They say it is within the realm of possibility that they harbored Melloria when he arrived. The Petalcos&#x27; home is adjacent to the home of Melloria&#x27;s mother as well. On the riverbed fronting their village were the three pumpboats brought in by the Abu Sayyaf.Second, they question why the two did not leave when the fighting began.&quot;Kasi before it happened, all the civilians were evacuated. Nag-evacuate ang mga tao. So yung mga naiwan doon sa loob are considered, sa amin, supporters or kasama ng armed group,&quot; said Lieutenant Colonel Dodgie Belloga, Commander of the 47th Infantry Battalion.Age, said the military, could not be an excuse to justify why the Petalcos did not leave, because several elderly residents managed to make it out when the fighting began.Third, they say along with 5 bodies, 4 firearms were found at the scene. This gives rise to the possibility that only one of the dead was unarmed, therefore, that one of the Petalcos bore a weapon. Security forces say there are other factors being considered, but could not be disclosed pending further investigation. In the absence of contrary evidence, Constancio and Crisanta Petalco remain in the list of six Abu Sayyaf members killed in the terrorist group&#x27;s first entry into the otherwise peaceful province of Bohol.<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">The 4 Abu Sayyaf from Sulu were buried in a mass grave in Inabanga. Here lie ASG leader Muamar Askali, Edimar Isnain, Sufyan, and 1 unnamed <a href="https://t.co/tpYIvX7H3i">pic.twitter.com/tpYIvX7H3i</a>— Chiara Zambrano (@chiarazambrano) <a href="https://twitter.com/chiarazambrano/status/853048097366130688">April 15, 2017</a></blockquote><script async="" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>At 2PM, funeral workers loaded Constancio and Crisanta&#x27;s caskets into vans, and drove them to the local cemetery. The remains of Abu Rami, Sufyan, and Edimar Isnain, and the fourth Abu Sayyaf were left behind for the meantime.The funeral was short. There are no priests available during Good Friday, and so the neighbors and family of the Petalcos prayed on their own at least those who could contain their emotion.Here is a family torn apart by the gruesome loss of two of their loved ones, made worse by the fact that one of their own could be the terrorist who brought this horror into their lives.

There they lay, six white caskets of people who shared the same fate, and until now, the same branding. To the military and the police, they are the members of the Abu Sayyaf killed after they entered Sitio Ilaya, Barangay Napo, in Inabanga, Bohol, all the way from Sulu.

There they lay, six white caskets of people who shared the same fate, and until now, the same branding. To the military and the police, they are the members of the Abu Sayyaf killed after they entered Sitio Ilaya, Barangay Napo, in Inabanga, Bohol, all the way from Sulu.

'They were not Abu Sayyaf'

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'They were not Abu Sayyaf'

Chiara Zambrano,

ABS-CBN News

Published Apr 15, 2017 04:22 PM PHT

Read More:

Terrorism

Inabanga

Bohol

abu sayyaf

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