No MNLF recruitment for AFP integration – Jikiri

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Central Committee Chair Yusop Jikiri has said that the front is not recruiting new MNLF members for integration into the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Jikiri said “the MNLF integration program has been accomplished and completed as early as 2003 and we are not recruiting new MNLF members now” as claimed by some Muslim sectors in Sulu, Basilan, and Tawi-Tawi province.

The on-going recruitment of supposed new MNLF members by some individuals in the provinces of Sulu, Basilan, and Tawi-Tawi were meant to deceive the Muslim people who are looking for jobs and want to become soldiers of the Republic of the Philippines, he said.

He added that there is an ongoing recruitment of new MNLF members who are asked or are required to fill up a form and pay as much as R500 or more head to become eligible for listing in the integration program of the AFP.

Jikiri emphasized that the “recruitment of new MNLF members is a scam, squeezing out your hard-earned money and making a fool out of you.”

The military on Tuesday arrested a total of 60 persons, 33 of them at a military checkpoint in Ipil Sibugay province and another 27 were rounded up from a house in the village of Guiwan in this city.

Those arrested claimed that they were new recruits of the MNLF and that they were going to Camp Jabalnur in Lanao del Sur for training prior to their integration into the regular force of the AFP.

Since there was no prior coordination or information about such movement, a quick verification was made with the MNLF by the AFP in the region. The Front denied any links with the group or the existence of any such training.

The military confiscated from the possessions of the said 59 individuals new military and police uniforms.

MNLF Central Committee deputy secretary general for military affairs Abuambri Taddik said the 60 individuals were reportedly recruited by MNLF commander Abu Supian, a cousin of the wife of Lupa Sug revolutionary committee chair Khaid Ajibon based at Upper Buansa in Indanan, Sulu.

According to Taddik, the recruitment was ordered by Karim Misuari, son of Nur Misuari and executed by Ustadz Murshi Ibrahim, the secretary general of the Misuari faction.