Village exec blames MILF in Tulunan attack

KIDAPAWAN CITY – Village officials in Tulunan, North Cotabato blamed fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for the attack on Tuesday that left six people dead, three of them were Ilonggo farmers. According to Chairman Satorre of Barangay Maybula in Tulunan, the attackers were supporters and sympathizers of the 109thbase command of the MILF stationed in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat.He even named the commander as a certain Commander Abbas. But the MILF central leadership, reports said, did not sanction the attack. Satorre’s village was attacked around 11 a.m., on Tuesday, a day after an Ilonggo farmer, identified only in his surname as Fernandez, recovered his two farming animals from the hands of two Maguindanaon Moro, both minors who hail from Columbio town. Satorre admitted their settlers, both Ilonggo and Ilocano, have to carry firearms to secure them from armed groups allegedly responsible for series of cattle rustling in his village. Those killed in the attack, he said, were farmers who also carry guns while tilling their lands. At that time the attack happened, the farmers were harvestingpalay. Using our farmers’ own guns, they opened fire on the attackers.Three of the MILF members were killed.We recovered their bodies just few kilometers away from the scene,” said the village chief. The tension in Barangay Maybula led some 60 families to leave homes and sought temporary shelter to nearby Barangay Kanebong, also in Tulunan. Satorre said at day time, women, children, and the elderly are left at the evacuation sites, while their husbands tend and secure the land.The males would return to their temporary shelters at that night time, he added. The conflict in Barangay Maybula -- situated on the boundary of the North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, and Maguindanao provinces, stemmed from land ownership claims ofhectares of agricultural lands both by Ilonggo settlers and Maguindanaon Moro. Despite efforts from the local governments and the Department of Agrarian Reform to settle the land conflict, armed skirmishes would erupt anytime, especially during harvest seasons, Satorre said.