Ombudsman fires wanted Talitay Mayor Montasir Sabal

MAGUINDANAO
--- Officials served on Friday a termination order for the missing mayor of
Talitay, wanted since 2016 for keeping a big volume of shabu and unlicensed
firearms.

Montasir Sabal
was discharged from the service by the Ombudsman for undeclared ownership of
lands and a house in Davao City and not for his alleged involvement in
large-scale drug trafficking.

Sabal was
among elected officials President Rodrigo Duterte tagged last year as
narco-politicians, whose names he made public with a stern warning to
neutralize each of them if they refuse to change for good.

The document
terminating Sabal, who was in his third and last term as mayor, was delivered
to his office in Talitay, Maguindanao on Friday morning by lawyer Noor
Hafizullah Abdullah, regional local government secretary of the Autonomous
Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The dismissal
order was received by Talitay municipal administrator Tato Aruyod in the presence
of Senior Supt. Agustin Tello, Maguindanao provincial police director, and Lt.
Col. Crizaldo Fernandez of the of 19th Infantry Battalion.

Ombudsman
Conchita Carpio Morales signed the document last July 13, premised on validated
findings that Sabal owned two parcels of land and a house in a plush
subdivision in Davao City and another lot in Barangay Biniruan in Cotabato City
that were not indicated in his most recent statement of assets, liabilities and
net worth.

Abdullah,
whose office is operating under the ministerial control of ARMM Gov. Mujiv
Hataman, said he received the Ombudsman ruling on August 8 along with a
directive to enforce it from the central office of the Department of Interior
and Local Government in Quezon City.

The memorandum
for Abdullah was signed by DILG Undersecretary Austere Panadero.

Sabal’s
younger brother, Abdulwahab, most known as Allan, is the incumbent vice mayor
of Talitay.

Talitay,
located in the second district of Maguindanao, was touted as the shabu
capital of the province before Duterte was elected president in May 2016.

The ousted
Sabal, an ethnic Maguindanaon, has been hiding since late 2016 after police
agents and personnel of the 19th IB and other units of the Army’s 6th Infantry
Division, then led by the now Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. of the Western
Mindanao Command, raided his house in
Talitay and found there shabu and high-powered firearms.

Sabal had
escaped before the raiding teams got close to his residential compound. He has
since remained at large.

Among the
firearms recovered in his house and nearby quarters of his bodyguards were a
.50 caliber machine gun, launchers for 40 millimeter grenade projectiles, an 81
and 60 millimeter crew-served mortars, fragmentation grenades and ammunition
reloading machines.

Sabal is still
being prosecuted for possession of shabu and for keeping unlicensed firearms
and explosives.

Galvez told
this news outfit via mobile phone Friday that the 6th ID’s hunt for Sabal will
continue even as he had been booted from Talitay’s mayoral post.

Tello and
Fernandez on Friday tightened security in Talitay due to possible hostile
actions by followers of Sabal, their political principal who was markedly
generous in providing them financial support while still at the helm of their
municipal government.