ARMM body backs call for 'special' courts for terrorism, drug cases

COTABATO CITY — Security forces support a call to put up special courts in the southern Philippines to try terrorism and highprofile narcotics cases.

Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said yesterday he supports a plan by the regional peace and order council to ask the Supreme Court to put up "special courts" in the five ARMM provinces.

The director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-ARMM, Juvenal Azurin, said yesterday that he supports the move as well.

The PNP and PDEA are on the council.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, chairman of the inter-agency RPOC, said regional Local Government Secretary Kirby Abdullah will bring the matter up with the Supreme Court.

Mijares and Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. of the Western Mindanao Command also both committed to helping deploy non-resident government prosecutors in the autonomous region.

Galvez told The STAR yesterday that WestMinCom is ready to provide judges and special prosecutors security details while working in the autonomous region, where prosecutors have been harassed and killed in the past.

"We need them to lead the prosecution of Islamic State-inspired militants implicated in crimes and drug lords arrested for largescale trafficking of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu)" he said.

The lack of courts in the region is also blamed for the never ending "rido" culture, where clans feud over affronts on pride and honor.

"Non-resident prosecutors can also help because they are neither related by blood nor by affinity to conflict protagonists. Blood relations and family ties are among the dynamics at play in all rido cases," Mijares said.

Hataman said having special courts in the ARMM – covering Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi – will boost the effort of addressing violent religious extremism now plaguing parts of the region.

"It will also enhance the anti-drug campaign of law-enforcement agencies in the autonomous region," Hataman said. —