KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Businessmen and religious communities appealed to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Monday to look into how Cotabato City Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema was implicated in a kidnapping case.
Sema's name was dragged into the abduction of a wealthy Chinese trader last month without the benefit of a prior inquiry or a counter-affidavit in keeping with the principles of "due process," said the traders.
Local peace advocacy outfits are apprehensive that tension between Sema and his political rivals could escalate after he was charged with kidnapping, which he and his followers said could have been instigated by hostile camps.
The victim, 54-year-old Adin Yu, owner of the city's oldest hardware store, was snatched January 8 at the parking area of a casino inside a plush hotel here. His family is still negotiating for his release.
The president of the influential Cotabato City Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chua Yu Beng, said they sympathize with Sema and are convinced that he has nothing to do with Yu's abduction.
Sema, also the chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), earlier denied his involvement in the abduction, saying his inclusion in the information sheet as among those responsible for the offense was politically motivated.
Soccsksargen Regional Police Director Gil Mineses said charges have been filed against Sema and his co-accused.
Members of the local Islamic communities are ranting against how the city's prosecutor, Fiscal Wilfred Buyco, did not require Sema and his co-accused to undergo a preliminary investigation and his failure to require them to submit their counter-affidavits before elevating their case to the Regional Trial Court here.
The names of Sema and his known loyal followers--former city administrator Ismael Daulog, Mayor Salaban Diocolano of Kabuntalan town in Maguindanao, Rolly Solano, and Sukarno Sema, an incumbent member of the City Council--were included in the list of more than 10 more suspects the police recommended to be charged in connection with Yu's kidnapping.
"Our names were not included in the first information sheet that was submitted to the prosecutor. We were listed as among the suspects in a subsequent request by the police to have the first information sheet amended," Sema lamented.
He declined to name those who could be behind their inclusion in the list of suspects in the Yu abduction, which the police submitted to the city prosecutor. (Malu Cadelina Manar
