Cotabato City—Members of a prominent family in Lanao have sought to clarify military reports that extremist Maute leader Abu Dar is also known as Owaida Benito Marohombsar.
Ali Macabalang, news correspondent of the Manila Bulletin, took the cudgels to speak for his maternal kin among members of the Marohombsar family, saying the real name of Abu Dar was actually Abdulmajid Humam.
In a post, Friday on social media, Macabalang said the Marohombsar family stood firm on Abu Dar’s real name, based on the voter’s identification card of Humam, which also matched his employment records as then interpreter at the Philippine Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“As a member of the Marohombsar clan, I urged him [Humam] to go out of the Philippines and fight his ‘holy war’ with Palestinians against transgressing Israelis. Please!,” Macabalang dared Humam. “Incidentally, the fellow [Humam or Abu Dar] does not belong to the clan,” he added.
Col. Romeo Brawner said the military had been in pursuit of Dar’s group, even prior to government pronouncement that it had increased monetary reward for his capture to P6 million.
Brawner said other members of Dar’s group had passed it off pretending as evacuees to escape Sunday’s airstrike, and the subsequent days’ ground offensives, when they were believed to have holed into interior parts of Binidayan, Tubaran, and Pagayawan since last Sunday.
Macabalang said Marohombsar family members, known for their erudition, were modest in life, not interested in the bounty the government had placed on Dar’s head.
They only wanted certain reports corrected where their family was dragged unnecessarily into controversy.
Members of the Marohombsar family include lawyers, scholars, and soldiers, but they have notably remained modest in their lifestyle, according to family sources.
The late Col. Luis Marohombsar was one of very few Filipino Muslims in the Bataan Death March. The other Filipino Muslim recorded by Death March historians was a Tausog, Musa Ballaho Mohammad, whose gallantry was acknowledged by then President Ferdinand Marcos in a speech at the Philippine Convention Center in 1980. Nash B. Maulana
Col. Marohombsar became the first military governor of the undivided Lanao, after World War II.
His children include Dr. Emily Marohombsar, past president of the Mindanao State University, and the late Johnny Marohombsar, a lawyer. Nash B. Maulana