`Rido’ triggered Basilan ambush incident --- authorities say
Peace and Order • 10:00 AM Mon Jan 11, 2021
1
By:
John M. Unson
Four were killed in the January 9 ambush incident in Basilan. (Courtesy of 101st Infantry Brigade)
COTABATO CITY ---- Authorities today dismissed as offshoot of a rido the fatal ambush on January 9 of a barangay chairman in Ungkaya Pukan town in Basilan and three others, reports from the island province said.
Rido is a generic term for clan war in most Southern Mindanao languages.
Bin Saudi Sarakil, chairman of Barangay Matata in Ungkaya Pukan, and three companions died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.
They were together in a car that gunmen, positioned at one side of the road in Barangay Banah in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan, shot with assault rifles while passing by.
Col. Domingo Gobway, commander of the Army’s 101st Brigade in Basilan, was quoted in radio reports as saying that the incident was triggered by an old grudge between Sarakil and adversaries in Ungkaya Pukan municipality.
Gobway, in-charge of the Army-led anti-terror Joint Task Force Basilan, said the ambush was not something pulled off by the Abu Sayyaf.
He said the group is almost non-existent in the island province, except for about 10 remaining terrorists running around as fugitives, still being convinced by local officials to return to the fold of law.
Brig. Gen. Samuel Rodriguez, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said the Basilan provincial police and the 101st Infantry Brigade are jointly probing on the ambush incident to determine the identities of the culprits for proper prosecution.
Rodriguez said the Basilan provincial peace and order council led by Gov. Jim Salliman and local officials in Ungkaya Pukan are initiating interventions meant to ease the tension caused by the incident.