MILF, Army trade accusations as fighting flares up in Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 9, 2010) – Philippine Muslim rebels on Friday accused the military of attacking them near Maguindanao province where a three-year old boy was killed in mortar fires.

Von Al-Haq, a spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said troops fired mortars on MILF targets in Datu Piang town, but one of the missiles hit a civilian area and killed the boy and wounded six others.

“Government troops fired mortars on MILF targets, but it landed on a civilian area and killed a three-year old boy. Six other children were wounded in that attack,” he said.

Al-Haq said military attack on Thursday was triggered by fighting between two Muslim clans after troops sided with one of the clan leaders. “It was a clan war, but the military sided with one leader and that started it all. The other clan leader had relatives in the MILF and fighting flared up,” he said.

But the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command on Friday blamed rebel forces for the killing of the boy. It said some 50 gunmen attacked members of the 29th Infantry Battalion, sparking a firefight.

Major Randolph Cabangbang, a regional army spokesman, said gunmen fired two rounds of mortar bombs hitting a village that killed the boy. He said six others were wounded in the attack. There were no reports of military or rebel casualties in the latest fighting.

Last week, the MILF also accused the military of launching mortar attacks in the villages of Lagitan and Meti in Maguindanao’s Datu Blah Sinsuat town.

Peace talks between the MILF and Manila was suspended after President Gloria Aquino ended her term last month, but new Filipino leader Benigno Simeon Aquino III said he would soon resume the negotiations with Muslim rebels in an effort to end bloody fighting in Mindanao.

The MILF, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, is fighting for decades for self-determination. (Mindanao Examiner)

2 wounded in Davao blast

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / April 16, 2010) – Two people were wounded in a grenade attack Friday in Davao City in the southern Philippines, the military said.

The military said one of two motorcycle men hurled the grenade at the Davao City Special School at around 4.25 p.m.

“Investigation disclosed that the grenade was thrown by two unidentified men riding tandem on a motorcycle. Two people were wounded in the explosion,” said Army Major Randy Cabangbang, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command.

No individual or group claimed responsibility for the blast and authorities are still investigating the motive of the attack. “The motive of the grenade attack is still being investigated,” Cabangbang said.

Extrajudicial killings continue in Davao City and the murders were being blamed to the so-called Davao Death Squad, a shadowy group of vigilantes, tagged as behind hundreds of unresolved slayings over the years.

Communist rebels are also actively operating in the outskirts of Davao, which was also targeted in the past by Moro rebels. (Geo Solmerano contributed to this report.)

Police kill follower of detained mayor linked to massacre at shootout inside Philippine mall

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 12, 2010) – A follower of the Ampatuan clan was killed Friday night in a shootout with a police escort of rival clan member at a shopping mall in Davao City in the southern Philippines, officials said.

Officials said the shooting occurred at around 7:25 p.m. at the 4th Floor of the Gaisano South Mall in downtown Davao after the policeman exchanged gunfire with Tamano Kamindan Mamalapat, a former government militia working for the Ampatuan clan.

Army Major Randolph Cabangbang, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command, said the police are still investigating the shooting. “The incident is being investigated by the police,” he told the Mindanao Examiner.

Cabangbang said the policeman who killed Mamalapat is an escort of Buluan town vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, whose wife and sisters were among 57 people, including at least 31 journalists brutally killed in November 23 last year by gunmen allegedly led by Andal Ampatuan Jr., the mayor of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao province.

The Ampatuan and Mangudadatu clans are bitter political foe.

Cabangbang did not give details about the shooting. But ABS television reported that Mamalapat tried to attack Mangudadatu who was shopping with his three children. The politician was unhurt.

Ampatuan Jr. and his father Andal Ampatuan Sr. and brothers and other clan members were also arrested and are facing multiple murder charges in connection with the killings. The Ampatuans all denied involvement in the gruesome murders.

The journalists were traveling with Mangudadatu’s wife on a political caravan when the gunmen seized them in Shariff Aguak town and herded them to the next town called Ampatuan where they were hacked with machetes and shot in the face and buried in shallow graves.(Mindanao Examiner)

Philippine tribesmen finally free hostages

ILIGAN CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / December 13, 2009) – Philippine tribesmen who were holding dozens of villagers have freed all their captives Sunday after a series of government negotiations, officials said.

Officials said all the hostages – 47 of them – were freed unharmed in Agusan del Sur’s Prosperidad town after three days in captivity on a remote village.

“We are happy to announce that all the hostages were freed unharmed. This is the result of a series of negotiations by the local crisis management committee,” said Major Randolph Cabangbang, a regional military spokesman.

He did not say whether the tribesmen, who are facing a string of criminal charges in connection with the killings of rival tribesmen, were arrested or not, or if any of their demands had been granted in exchange for the freedom of the captives.

More than a dozen Manobo tribesmen, headed by Ondo Perez, had seized the villagers on December 10 after being told that policemen were on their way to arrest them.

The tribesmen originally rounded up 125 people, but 50 of them managed to escape to inform the police about the incident and subsequent negotiations by social worker Josefina Bahadi that led to the release of some of the hostages.

Perez had demanded the arrest of another tribe leader Jun Tubay whom he accused as behind the killings of his sisters and relatives last year. Both families are locked in a bitter clan war that had killed about a dozen people from both sides.

Perez said they took the hostages to shield them from being arrested by the police and demanded authorities to drop all charges against them in exchange for the safe release of the captives.

Police flatly rejected the demands and said the gunmen have warrants for their arrest in connection to the murder of Tubay’s relatives. (Mindanao Examiner)

Philippine troops seized cache of weapons in "Massacre Land"

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / December 4, 2009) – Philippine security forces on Friday seized a stockpile of illegal firearms from the mansions of a powerful political clan blamed for last week’s brutal slaying of 57 people, officials said.

The firearms were seized after policemen and soldiers unearthed in a vacant lot on Thursday a huge cache of light artillery and heavy infantry weapons and munitions in the capital town of Shariff Aguak near the mansions of the Ampatuan clan, a key political ally of President Gloria Arroyo.

Officials said civilians were providing the authorities with information about illegal weapons in Maguindanao province where, in November 23, more than 100 gunmen allegedly led by Datu Unsay town mayor Andal Ampatuan Jnr attacked his rival political caravan.

“The search is continuing and we expect to find more weapons and munitions. Civilians and allies of the Ampatuan are themselves providing us with trivial information about these weapons,” said Major Randolph Cabangbang, a regional army spokesman.

He said the security forces, armed with court warrants, searched the mansions of Ampatuan Jnr, and his father’s Andal Ampatuan Snr., the governor of Maguindanao, and the mansion of a brother Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of the Muslim autonomous region. The mansion of his brother Sajid Ampatuan, the deputy governor of Maguindanao province, was also searched.

The mayor surrendered three days after the massacre and denied all accusations against him. His father and brother also denied involvement in the massacre.

Ampatuan’s father and several more clan members were also implicated in the attack that left at least 30 journalists. Among those slain in the attack were the wife and two sisters of rival Esmael Mangudadatu, the deputy mayor of Buluan town.

The mayor accused in the massacre is being groomed by his father to succeed him as provincial governor, a position also being contested by Mangudadatu. The journalists were only covering the filing of the nomination for governor of Mangudadatu, but they too mercilessly killed.

Ampatuan Jnr, who surrendered to authorities three days after the killings, denied involvement in the attack, and so were his father and brothers and other clan members who were implicated in what is now known as the “Maguindanao massacre.”

Television pictures showed soldiers and policemen tearing down a wall suspected as secret arsenal in one of the mansions. Another video showed soldiers with K9 units and metal detectors searching for weapons and explosives inside the sprawling housing complex.

The military also began an investigation into the weapons after many of them had markings that suggested it came from the Department of National Defense. Among the recovered weapons were 57mm and 90mm anti-tank bazookas, mortar bombs, machine guns, sniper and assault rifles, automatic pistols and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition.

It was unknown whether the weapons seized from the Ampatuans were sold by rogue soldiers or not or if any of the firearms were used in the killings.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group negotiating peace with Manila, previously accused the military commanders of illegally selling automatic weapons to political warlords.

President Arroyo, who visited Thursday the funeral of some journalists killed in the attack, ordered authorities to arrest those involved in the grisly murders.

More than 3,000 policemen and soldiers were deployed since last week in Maguindanao and took over the provincial capitol building and two other town halls controlled by the Ampatuan patriarch. (Mindanao Examiner)

Military threaten Filipino nuns

Filipino nuns. (CathNews)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (CathNews / Feb. 24, 2009) - A Filipino Benedictine nun has accused government soldiers of harassing herself and other environmental activists after they held a forum on mining and sustainable agriculture in a southern Mindanao village, according to a report by the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN).

UCAN reported that Sr Stella Matutina said armed soldiers wearing camouflaged uniforms harassed her and two environmentalists after they organised a village forum on mining related issues.

"Armed men barged in and roused all of us at gunpoint," Sister Stella Matutina, 40, said in a recent press conference in the southern Davao City. "They demanded to see the documents and materials used during the forum."

The group, invited by local officials, had finished an "anti-mining forum" and talk on sustainable agriculture in Taytayan village on February 15. They were sleeping in a village hall when the incident allegedly took place.

The Sisters' Association in Mindanao condemned the incident. "The Armed Forces of the Philippines is sending out the chilling message that no religious can disrupt their plans of protecting the interests of logging, mining and big businesses," read their statement presented at the press conference.

Sr Matutina, together with Panalipdan, a broad alliance of environmentalists and peoples' organizations, has helped in documenting mining activities in Mindanao's Davao Oriental province, including those of the world's largest mining company BHP Billiton.

Panalipdan's Davao Oriental chairman Wenceslao Mapa and Councilor Maria Fe Matibo from the provincial capital of Mati joined Sister Matutina to conduct the forum.

However, masked gunmen wearing camouflaged military uniforms woke them up before 4 a.m. the next day.

Sr Matutina said the men introduced themselves as soldiers and told her she was not supposed to be there. The nun and the environmentalists were held for hours, until Mati diocese sent Father Edmundo Escobal to negotiate for their release.

Major Randolph Cabangbang, regional military spokesperson contacted by telephone, denied any harassment had taken place and described the incident as propaganda by groups linked to Maoist rebels.

He said soldiers went to the area "to check reports of suspicious looking and armed men."
"Our soldiers did not know the nun was there," he said. "What was she doing there? She was supposed to stay in the convent. What she did there wasn't related to her Church work."

At the news conference, Mapa told reporters the gunmen had pointed two rifles at him and he felt "traumatized." Matibo said she felt embarrassed about the way the nun and Mapa were treated.

Sister Matutina said the incident infuriated her, but she was most concerned about how soldiers would treat "ordinary people who cannot defend their rights."

Panalipdan reported it documented more than 100 applications for mining exploration permits submitted to the provincial government as of December 2008.

13 MILF rebels killed in Philippine military air strikes

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