MILF: Rogue leader Kato in serious condition after another seizure

A leader of a breakaway faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is allegedly in serious condition after suffering another seizure recently, the MILF said Tuesday. The MILF cited reports reaching it indicating Ameril Umbra Kato is "is reportedly weak and can hardly talk" after the seizure. “His condition is deteriorating faster and only his wife and son are attending to him,” the MILF said in an article on its website, citing "reliable sources." Kato is the leader of the so-called Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement/Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFM/BIFF). In 2008, he had led attacks in Mindanao after the Supreme Court junked a memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain between the MILF and the then Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. The MILF also quoted its source as saying Kato "is no longer in command of the BIFM/BIFF and is completely isolated and abandoned by his followers." Kato's BIFM/BIFF split from the MILF despite the MILF's attempts to have the breakaway group's members return to its fold. Because of this, the MILF declared Kato's group bughaat, meaning a group that rebels or does not obey a lawful order or duly organized authority. In Resolution No. 03-06 in 2011, the MILF central committee declared Kato and his followers as no longer members of the MILF "unless they cease and desist without delay their anti-MILF campaigns and other related activities that are intended to discredit... the entire legitimate leadership of the MILF and henceforth return at once to the fold of the MILF." The MILF also decreed that Kato and his followers stop spreading rumors and malicious accusations against the leadership and members of the MILF. — LBG, GMA News