A female police official has been arrested on suspicion that she is trying to help trapped members of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Bohol.
Director General Ronald dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police, identified the suspect as Supt. Maria Christina Nobleza, currently the deputy regional chief of the PNP Crime Laboratory in Southern Mindanao.
Nobleza was apprehended Saturday after trying to evade a checkpoint in the town of Clarin with a suspected ASG member and two other companions.
The arrest came after two separate gunfights that killed four ASG bandits in Clarin.
Dela Rosa said Nobleza tried to spirit out ASG member Renierlo Dungon with whom she had an affair.
“She is romantically involved or linked with an ASG member. I don’t know if they are already living together but they fell in love with each other,” said Dela Rosa.
One of the passengers, according to Dela Rosa, is a woman whose daughters were married to Zulkifli bin Hir (alias Marwan), slain ASG leader Khadafy Janjalani, ASG commander Abu Sulaiman and Akmad Santos, tagged as the leader of hardcore Moslem converts.
Marwan was a Malaysian bomb-maker killed during the Mamasapano operation in Maguindanao that left 44 police commandos dead.
Janjalani, on the other hand, was the brother of ASG founder Abdurajak Janjalani. Both were killed in two separate military operations in Sulu.
The fourth passenger is a 13-year-old minor, allegedly a child of Santos.
Dela Rosa said both Nobleza and company were collared near the area where government forces engaged the fleeing ASG men.
“Initially, it would appear that they are trying to rescue the remaining people there but that is yet to be established,” said Dela Rosa.
Dela Rosa said it is possible that Nobleza may have been exploited and influenced by Dungon to be sympathetic with the activity of the ASG.
In fact, Dela Rosa said he has received an information that Nobleza has already converted to Islam.
Still, Dela Rosa wants to give Nobleza the benefit of the doubt.
“We cannot say that she is a member of the Abu Sayyaf but possibly, she was exploited through her personal connection which is that she fell in love with ASG member Dungon,” said dela Rosa.
“That is what we call in Bisaya as nabuang sa gugma, she went crazy because of love. Because of her love to that ASG member, she allowed herself to be used in the rescue of these trapped ASG members,” he stressed.
Dela Rosa said before her current post, Nobleza used to be assigned in the Directorate for Intelligence and even to the Presidential Anti-Organized Commission.
She was then transferred to the Anti-Illegal Drugs Group (AIDG) but was reassigned to the Crime Laboratory when the anti-drugs group was dissolved.
Currently detained in Central Visayas, Nobleza may be transferred to Camp Crame, according to Dela Rosa.
“It would be better if she would be detained here because she would be a high-risk detainee there,” said Dela Rosa.
“We will charge her with criminal cases and administrative cases. We will certainly remove her from the service because she is sleeping with the enemy,” added Dela Rosa.