By EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
Part 2 of 4
Exclusive to SDN
Editor’s Note: SDN — SciTech and Digital News is in possession of a rare and ONLY Official list of the names of the MNLF elite Top 90 cadre who were trained by foreign military experts. This is a humble attempt to honor the Moro braves and the Moro leader who sent them off.
Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-suc
MANILA, June 1, 2023 (SDN) — The Top 90 cadre later became the nucleus of what turned out to be named the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and this is a story on who was the focal person who organized and sent off the trainees.
If you still have a vague idea, then wonder no more, the name’s Hadji Abdulla U. “Al” Camlian of Zamboanga City, Western Mindanao. He opened up, exclusively, recently to SDN — SciTech and Digital News over a cup of coffee on a clear sunny day, the morning summer sun seems happy to oblige, eavesdropping on the conversation in his veranda.
It was a hot day, just thin clouds in the sky, the sun piercing through to shine it’s rays on Earth.
The one-on-one touched lightly on the more than 40 decades Mindanao peace process, and the now-BARMM (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao), then unintentionally digressing, or perhaps its natural trajectory, on the young Moros’ training.
Related: Al Camlian: The Top 90 Cadre, Elite Core of the MNLF, Revealed
More popularly known as Al Camlian, he explained that in the beginning of the secret undertaking there was no conscious effort to limit the trainees to “90”, but that was the number that were able to go. They were not known either as “Top 90”. The term just evolved.
He revealed that a number of organizations, even a movie studio, had previously already approached him to get his story, but he declined. “It was not yet the time, then,” he tells this journalist.
Of course, in the Moro communities in Mindanao, the term “Top 90” is a buzz word. Many were able to encounter some of the members of the Top 90 although not knowing they belonged to the elite of the MNLF.
How it all started, the training on guerrilla warfare
The idea about the clandestine training was truly something from nowhere, just out of the blue, there was no prior clues to start with. That’s as far as Camlian was concerned. To emphasize, he did not have an atom of idea beforehand of any plan to send young Moros outside of the country to undergo a guerrilla training.
A former activist in Manila, he recalled how in 1961 he fetched Senator Domocao “Domi” Alonto, a prominent Maranao leader, at the airport in Zamboanga City. He conveyed the first Moro senator to a downtown hotel for his accommodation.
The following morning the two went to the city’s Caragasan Beach for a dip on the cool seawater. It was a day to relax, smell the sweet breeze skimming through the surface of the sea.
It was during this visit to the beach when the senator told him something that he was not able to process and understand right away.
They were having a nice time. Camlian was oblivious of what was to come. No way he could have known what was in the mind of the Moro leader. He thought it was just a casual visit to the beach.
Camlian said his conversation with the senator was etched in his mind, he can never forget the words.
And it started. Like from thin air.
“Abdulla, in the future you have to defend yourself and you have to help defend the Muslims,” Alonto tells him, quoting the exact words from memory.
Camlian was tongued-tied and could not understand his companion on the beach. He did not see the rhyme nor the reason behind the cryptic words. It took him moments, though slowly to process the senator’s words.
“What should I do?” he asks, adding they were the first words he finally could muster. Though he was still in a state of trying to digest what he heard.
“You have to go to Egypt,” Alonto answers. Now, Egypt then was under the leadership of President Gamal Abdel Nasser from 1954 to 1970.
“What should I do in Egypt?” Camlian asks again, still clueless, full of anxieties. Young persons would surely understand his reaction.
“Why, don’t you want to study?” Alonto doubles down as he looked the young Moro in the eye.
Did the senator have something in mind which the young Camlian then about 25 years old still did not have an idea? Or that early the senator already had premonition and telltale signs of what to come for the Muslims in the country?
Or to stretch the imagination, did Moro leaders that early in the 1960s already had understanding with leaders of what Camlian often describes a “neighboring friendly country” on the secret training of Moro youths? As well as some leaders of other countries?
Further, did any of the Moro leaders such as Alonto, Sultan Rashid Lucman, Datu Udtog Matalam, Salida K. Pendatun, and others, already made arrangements at that time with the unnamed country (as Camlian requested) for the guerrilla warfare training?
The questions are fair to ask because hundreds of Moro youths were sent to that neighbor-country in many batches, and they were also taken in. This was even some years before the infamous Jabidah Massacre on Corregidor Island on the 18th of March 1968.
Fair questions, indeed!
Going a bit ahead, here’s the initial names of the Top 90, from a rare and ONLY OFFICIAL LIST provided to SDN by Camlian:
- 1. Abdul “Bobby” Alonto
- 2. Abubakar “Baccah” Jul
- 3. Amilpasa “Caloy” Bandaying
- 4. Alber “Boie” Alonto
- 5. Asamlil “Baddun” Amil
- 6. Abdulmannan “Mannan” Abbas
- 7. Acmad “George” Inampadan
- 8. Ali “Clay” Sansarona
- 9. Ahmad “Alibbon” Sumandal
- 10. Bianlai “Bian” Lim
- 11. Casan “Cas” Cana
- 12. Dimasangkay “Dimas” Pundato
- 13. Hadji Hudan “Dan” Abubakar
- 14. Ibrahim Camar “Kim” Riga
- 15. Jamil “Fox” Lucman
- 16. Lamit “Dadiyo” Hassan
- 17. Menoh “Mike-Japanese” Manabilang
- 18. Mohammad “Imam” Issa
- 19. Sabturaji “Jih” Morabi
- 20. Sali “Sal” Wali
(Note — names in bold letters are the living remnants of the Top 90; it has not been updated yet on who are still alive, or already gone.)
Going back to that questions above, a youthful lawyer deeply involved — and still is — in the Mindanao peace process said that apparently the seed of independence struggle was spawned at the historic 1955 Bandung Conference of non-aligned nations from Africa and Asia in Bandung, Indonesia.
It was the time of Indonesian President Soekarno, leader of his country’s struggle for independence from Dutch colonialism. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was a participant. At least one Moro leader attended the conference, Alonto. (✓)
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Next: Top 90 names continued