Zamboanga cabbie shot

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 27, 2010) – A pedicab driver was shot and seriously wounded in an attack Wednesday in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines, police said.

The motive of the attack is still unknown, but a police officer said the man was shot in the head and body in the village of Talon-Talon and rushed to hospital.

The attack occurred shortly before 6 p.m.

“He was shot twice – one in the head and another in the body – and we have rushed him to the hospital,” the officer said.

Gun attacks are not uncommon in Zamboanga City with police blaming family feud and clan war in most of the shootings. (Mindanao Examiner)

Vendettas and violence on Mindanao

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines (IRIN / June 24, 2009) - The murder of Helen Accoon, a college principal, on the southern conflict-ridden island of Mindanao in 2008, shocked many people as it seemed to mark an escalation in clan feuding, known as 'rido', according to the United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN).

The 'rido' code of honour does not normally allow attacks on women.

Accoon was gunned down by an unidentified assailant while walking in Marawi City, the provincial capital of Lanao del Sur. The victim was the wife of Macadadaya Accon, the son of the mayor of Buadi Puso Buntong Municipality.

Wilfredo Torres, editor of a book entitled Rido: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao, defines 'rido' as “armed hostilities between families and kinship groups”.

The Mindanao provinces of Lanao de Sur, Maguindanao, Lanao del Norte and Sulu have been identified as having the highest number of 'rido' cases.

Deeply rooted in the Muslim culture of honour, “'rido' is characterized by a series of retaliatory acts of violence to avenge an affront or injustice - whether real or perceived”, said Torres.

Such acts could be sparked by petty theft or insults, political rivalries, land disputes or more serious matters like homicide. Improper overtures to, or advances on, a woman could also lead to 'rido', he said.

Armed conflict less of a threat?

Many in Mindanao view 'rido' as more of a threat than the decades-long conflict, which has left thousands dead and many more displaced.

A 2005 study by the Social Weather Station, a public opinion body which tracks economic, political and social indicators, indicated that people in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) were more concerned about 'rido' than armed conflict.

According to the survey, 'rido' has been experienced by 28 percent of ARMM families, compared to only 16 percent of families nationwide.

The Philippine National Police in ARMM estimate that 5,500 people have died in 'rido'-related cases over the past three decades - equivalent to about 183 deaths per year.

Police Superintendent Gani Paramata Asira in Marawi City, said there were 218 cases of 'rido' in 2006, but that the numbers are an underestimation.

“It is rare that anyone will press charges or stand as a witness for fear of incriminating other members of their family,” he said, adding that data for more recent years were incomplete.

Rough justice
Poverty and poor go
vernance contribute to 'rido'. However, certain elements unique to the island such as the proliferation of firearms, lack of law enforcers and an inefficient justice system exacerbate the situation.

Abdul Hamidullah Atar is the executive director of Reconciliatory Initiatives for Development Opportunities (R.I.D.O, Inc.), an NGO which aims to resolve and reduce clan wars.

“The Philippine judicial system is based on the American one. It is not adapted to the sensitivities of Muslim culture. Every clan wants to collect guns to purvey its own brand of justice because we cannot get justice elsewhere,” Atar said.

“Much attention is given to the ongoing conflict between the Philippine government and the MILF [Mindanao Islamic Liberation Front], when there are probably more casualties resulting from 'rido',” he added.

R.I.D.O, Inc. tries to resolve clan wars by examining genealogy: neutral relatives of conflicting parties are identified as possible mediators.

Code of honour

But the 'rido' code of honour normally bars the killing of women or children.

“Women, like children and the elderly, are traditionally seen as defenceless and therefore untouchable in 'rido'. They may be collateral damage, but not the target,” Samira Gutoc, a Muslim rights activist and former secretary-general of the Philippine Muslim Women’s Council, told IRIN.

Gutoc said that in the Amai Pakpak hospital in Marawi City, there were 50 'rido'-related incidents between December 2008 and February 2009.

“What is fearsome is that women like Helen Accoon have become recent targets of this vendetta phenomenon. Killing women is a more powerful way of creating fear,” Gutoc said.

Asnawi Abdullah, a surgeon at the Amai Pakpak hospital, said no official records of 'rido' cases were kept at the hospital.

“We don’t ask questions. Our priority is to stabilize the patient… We want to avoid a situation where a patient is finished off on hospital premises. It hasn’t happened yet, but there is always the fear it could.”

IRIN is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, but its services are editorially independent.


Link: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84979

Ambush kills 3 in Basilan province

BASILAN, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 06, 2009) – At least three people were killed Monday in an ambush blamed by the military and police to clan war in the troubled province of Basilan in the southern Philippines.

Police said the gunmen ambushed a cargo truck as it passed a village in the town of Lantawan. At least seven passengers were also injured in the attack.

Regional police chief Bensali Jabarani said he sent additional police forces in the town to hunt down the attackers.

“Sporadic fighting between the protagonists actually began on Sunday and continued until today. We have sent forces in the area to hunt those behind the attack and disarm the protagonists. This is clan war,” he told nthe Mindanao Examiner.

The military also said the fighting was between two warring civilian groups.

“We have reports that the attack was connected to a feud between two civilian groups,” Army First Lt. Steffani Cacho, a spokeswoman for the Western Mindanao Command, said in a separate interview.

Clan war or locally known as “rido”, is common in many parts of the southern Philippines. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the think tank, Asia Foundation, have said more than 3,000 people have been killed over the past seven decades in family feuds in the southern Philippines.

Rido can involve disputes among family members or among two or more rival families, pitting neighbors or different ethnic groups against each other. The disputes center on issues of land, money, marriage or political power and involve revenge killing.

The violence increases with each act of retaliation, broadening to include those not directly involved in the dispute, including women and children, according to the Asia Foundation, adding, some feuds lasted for decades. (Mindanao Examiner)

Clan War Still A Big Problem In Muslim Region In Mindanao

COTOBATO CITY, Philippines - Baikongan Ismail sits in a small airless schoolroom in Datu Piang, a mountain of plastic chairs piled behind her. The classroom has been home to her family of six for three months, ever since renewed armed hostilities between competing local clans, backed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), forced them to evacuate their farm in Barangay Pandi in mid-December 2007.

“Our houses were burned by armed groups,” Ismail told IRIN. “Several times now our family has been displaced.” Each time, she said, her chickens and ducks and crops were looted. The 50-something woman now vows: “We won’t go home. We don’t want to return and be caught in the crossfire again.” Ismail’s family is one of 1,900 displaced by the December 2007 fighting.

Datukan S Mokammad, the provincial social welfare officer covering the municipality of Datu Piang, in Maguindanao province, on Mindanao Island, in the southern Philippines, told IRIN that clan fighting continues in the municipality, with 10 barangays (villages) out of 20 still affected by the conflict.

All the barangays sit in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), an area carved out in 1996 in a peace agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). While peace talks are ongoing between the government and the MILF, a break-away group of the MNLF in the 1970s, which fought the government in large-scale hostilities in 2000, no settlement is close and fighting between government forces and the MILF, and clan warfare, usually over land, breaks out sporadically.

Provincial, regional and municipal disaster response officials are stretched thin. While displacements from each conflict in the region are relatively small-scale – from 1,000 to 2,000 families per incident - the numbers add up quickly. With as many as 24 evacuations per year, up to 200,000 people are being displaced annually and in disparate locations. Government agencies and the humanitarian community alike are challenged to respond quickly with sufficient aid.

Not enough resources

“Our resources for frontline ministries such as health and social services are not that big,” Oscar Sanpulna, of the office of the ARMM regional governor, told IRIN. “In practically all areas, finances for medicines and foodstuffs are not enough.”

Bai Soraida M Biruar, director of the regional office of social welfare and development, echoed his concern: “Government resources are insufficient, there is always a lack.” Her office has only two million pesos (US$48,000) annually for regional emergencies. During the December Datu Piang crisis alone, 500,000 pesos ($12,000) was spent.

Datukan S Mokammad, a social worker for the municipality of Datu Piang, told IRIN that local government gave food assistance but it was insufficient. “It was the same basic problem we have experienced in other evacuations. There are delays and insufficiencies in the response of the NGOs and the international community.” Virtually all municipal, regional and provincial authorities interviewed by IRIN cited such delays.

“Back in 2000-2003, when there were 980,000 IDPs in the region, all the international agencies were here,” said Benjamin S Barga, of the ARMM civil defence regional office in Parang, Maguindanao province. “Not now,” he told IRIN. “Few agencies are here and are capable of responding quickly and effectively.”

During the earlier crisis period, the Mindanao Emergency Response Network (MERN) was an effective coordinating and response entity of the humanitarian community, but, according to Uasa Teng Enok of the regional office of social welfare, “MERN is no longer as active as before.”
WFP deputy country director Alghassim Wurie, operations manager in Cotabato City, Maguindanao Province, told IRIN: “We have a warehouse with food; it depends when we hear about the problem and when we get an official request from the government.”

He conceded, however, that sometimes the quantity distributed was insufficient for large Filipino families. “At a February 2008 meeting, WFP made a decision to increase food assistance to conflict IDPs in Mindanao from 10kg to 25kg of rice.”

Coordination problems

Better coordination and sharing of information is seen by all government agencies and the humanitarian community as key to a faster and more effective response. WFP and other agencies recommend the MERN be revived.

“There is still a lot that needs to be thought through,” said Barga. “There is definitely no coordination and advance planning for the next disaster.”

Even tracking existing displacements is a challenge, Elsie C Amil, Maguindanao provincial social welfare and development officer, told IRIN. “We have a very big gap in monitoring displacements. Our main challenge is tracking movements because of the clan wars. We need technical support for improved coordination and monitoring of IDPs and the entire exercise of coordinating response.”

In the interim, many IDPs seem to fall through the gap. “The food has not been sufficient,” Ismail told IRIN. “We asked for kitchen utensils and mats but never received them.” And even though their temporary home is a school-house, 14 to 15 children of the 10 families there no longer attend classes.

Integrated Regional Information Networks, commonly known as IRIN, is a project of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) tasked with providing information relevant to those responding to and affected by complex emergencies, such a conflict-induced forced migration, and natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes in sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Created in 1995, it is widely used by the humanitarian aid community and others seeking information on complex emergencies and has diversified into a number of subprojects.

Cop Killers Hunted In Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 15, 2008) – Police have mounted wide manhunt for three men who killed two policemen in the troubled Muslim autonomous region in southern Philippines.

“Police forces are tracking down the men responsible in the killings,” Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao, the regional police chief, told the Mindanao Examiner.

The two policemen – Edgar Espra and Prang Andig - were killed late Friday inside a commuter van in Shariff Kabunsuan’s Sultan Kudarat town by three passengers. One passenger was also hit by a stray bullet, Goltiao said.

The motive of the attack is still unknown, but Goltiao said it could be linked to a family feud.

“Feud could the motive in the killings because one of the victims, PO1 Prang Andig, a son-in-law of Parang town Mayor Talib Abo, was said to have many enemies before he became a policeman. Andig was believed to be the real target here,” Goltiao said without elaborating.

There was no immediate statement from the family of Andig.

Clan war, gun attacks and extra-judicial killings are not uncommon in the Muslim autonomous region. Dozens of people had been killed in clan war and gun attacks in recent years in the Muslim region considered as the poorest in the country.

The region was also targeted in the past by terrorist bombings blamed by authorities to the local Abu Sayyaf group and Indonesian militant Jemaah Islamiya. (Mindanao Examiner)

Vendetta War Erupts In Southern Philippine Island

BASILAN ISLAND, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 13 Aug) – At least one person was killed in a firefight between two rival Muslim families in Basilan island in the southern Philippines.

Dozens of families have fled their homes because of the fighting that erupted on a remote village called Dansalan near Lantawan town at the weekend. The skirmishes erupted after a villager, Haji Paraja, was killed by a son of his opponent.

In retaliation, Paraja’s relatives attacked the gunman’s family, sparking sporadic battle in the village, but it was not immediately known whether there were casualties in the fighting.

Sporadic gunfight was also reported Monday, but no reports of fresh killings.
Before he was killed, Paraja told his family that he would run in next month’s village elections. It was not immediately known whether his murder had anything to do with politics. The suspect in his killing remains at large.

Vendetta killing is common in Basilan island and other areas in the southern Philippines and the feud would sometimes last for decades unless both protagonists agree to a cease-fire brokered by religious leaders and accept blood money as payment for the bloodshed. (Mindanao Examiner)

5 Family Members Slain In Zamboanga Strafing

ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 23 Oct) - Unidentified gunmen killed 5 members of farming family and wounded a child in an attack on a remote village in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga Sibugay, officials said.

Officials said the gunmen killed a couple, an old woman and two children in an attack Monday on the village called Bagong Buhay in Alicia town.

"Authorities are investigating the attack. Five family members are dead, including two children. The attack also left one child wounded. Troops are tracking down those responsible in the attack," Capt. Noel Abello, a regional army spokesman, said in an interview by the Mindanao Examiner.

Abello said the gunmen opened fire on the village at around 6 a.m. and escaped after the strafing.

He said no individual or group claimed responsibility for the killings, but the area is a known lair of communist insurgents, blamed in the past by the military and police for the string of attacks against civilians suspected of aiding the government in the campaign against the New People's Army.

Family feud and clan war are also rampant in the province and had been blamed by authorities also for the spate of killings. (Mindanao Examiner)