CAGAYAN
DE ORO CITY, May 28 – State forces and government officials conducted a
house-to-house inspection in Iligan City Sunday in response to alleged threat
that the city would be razed to the ground by local terror groups.
City
Mayor Celso Regencia ordered the local government unit, accompanied by the
military and police, to conduct the census after the city received a report
Saturday night that the Maute group would burn five villages in the city’s
downtown district.
In a
telephone interview Sunday morning, Iligan City spokesperson Joe Pantoja
identified the objects of the alleged terror plot as the villages of Tubod,
Hinaplanon, Luinab, Mahayahay and Del Carmen, all located in the city’s
downtown area. Forty percent of the residents in these villages are Muslims.
He
said that the census team was accompanied by village and city officials so that
village residents could easily be identified.
“Those
without proper identification would be held for questioning,” Pantoja said.
Actually,
the house-to-house census would be conducted in all the 44 urban and rural villages
in Iligan City, Pantoja said, adding that there was no cause for alarm because
the census was done as a security measure.
“The
city has adopted stricter measures by monitoring the movements of people from
all walks of life to ensure the safety of the city residents,” Pantoja said.
He
said that 50 vehicles had been released earlier after law enforcers found out
that the passengers were heading to attend a convention on ”federalism” in
Misamis Occidental.
Mayor
Regencia appealed to Iligan City residents to cooperate with law enforcers on
all security measures that the city might implement every now and then, Pantoja
said.
He
said that Iligan City was host to about 1,900 evacuees who fled from
strife-torn Marawi, a predominantly Muslim city about 38 kilometers southwest
of Iligan.
Clahes
erupted Tuesday between government troops and the Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf in
Marawi, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte to put Mindanao under martial law
for 60 days.
(CD/PNA).
