Task Force Davao: We are not Quiboloy ‘private army’

Pastor paying salaries of miltiary-trained militiamen

The former commanding officer of Task Force Davao has denied the military contingent is a “private army” of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, adding troopers and militiamen assigned to the pastor and his Prayer Mountain in Tamayong, Calinan district are covered by a memorandum of agreement.

If they are used for personnel interest, we will invalidate the agreement, said Col. Allan Luga, who has been replaced this week by Col. Rainier Cruz as head of the contingent assigned here after the twin-bombing of the Davao International Airport and the Sasa Wharf in 2003.

Early this year, Luga admitted TFDavao forces and military-trained Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (SCAA) personnel are assigned to Pastor Quiboloy.

But Luga said the government is not paying for the militiamen who draw their salary from the televangelist who heads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The Name Above Every Name.

Luga yesterday made the clarification over reports the SCAA assigned to Quiboloy may be linked to the April 29 killing of tribal leader Datu Dominador Diarog in Kahusayan, Manuel Guinga in nearby Tugbok district. Diarog died in the evening strafing of his house that also wounded his wife and two daughters.

Col. Alexander Ambal, commanding officer of the 73^rd Infantry Battalion, which spearheads the anti-communist campaign in the hinterlands of Davao City, said Diarog may have been killed by New People’s Army for being sympathetic to the military.

But Inspector Ireneo Dalogdog, chief of the Tugbok Police, said leads point to Tamayong barangay captain Greg Canada, an ally of Pastor Quiboloy. Canada, according to police investigators, offered to buy a 2-hectare farm of Diarog, who refused days before the killing. Diarog also has been harassed by an unidentified group who burned his farmhouse thrice due to his refusal to sell the land.

Luga in January told ABS/CBN DXAB radio in Davao City that while the SCAAs were trained by the military, their subsistence is being paid by Quiboloy, who requested the assignment of the militiamen.

Luga said the set-up with Quiboloy, covered by an agreement, is similar to those in banana plantations in the Davao Region, where the military trains the SCAA and then are assigned to the plantations who pay for their salary.

We train the SCAAs and assign them to those who request for it, said Luga.

If the militiamen are used for personal interest or they act as bodyguard of Pastor Quiboloy, then we will invalidate the agreement, said Luga yesterday. He said the military-trained SCAA elements do not only protect Prayer Mountain or Quiboloy but also Tamayong against communist rebels.