ALEOSAN, NORTH COTABATO, Philippines—Felimon Cayang says he is ready to die to save his land from the Moro separatist rebels spreading terror through Christian communities.

Cayang, a 48-year-old farmer and former tax collector, leads a once feared group of Christian fighters that has regrouped after more than three decades to battle a Moro insurgency on the bitterly divided island of Mindanao.

His rag-tag army comprises about 450 farmers with no formal military training, but who have honed their fighting skills through years of combat experience here.

The group, referred to by locals as ‘God’s army,’ reformed after a spate of attacks by Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels that followed the scrapping of a peace accord which would have given Muslims their own state.

Ferocious in battle

“We never really went away,” says Cayang, a barangay councilman known as Commander Max to his peers.

“We will not hesitate to kill any Moro who wants to take our lands away. We are prepared to die.”

Cayang’s group, known as the “Ilaga” after the local word for rat, first surfaced in the 1970s at the height of the campaign for a Moro homeland in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country.

They became known for their ferocity in battles against Moro fighters trying to push the Christian settlers off Mindanao, once ruled by Southeast Asia’s biggest Islamic sultanate.

With amulets inscribed with prayers in Latin, machetes and worn-out rifles, they say they are providing a vital defense against the MILF. Aside from their weapons the Ilaga believed they are protected during battle by their amulets, a vest with biblical passages in Latin, a scapular bearing the image of Jesus Christ and a tiny bottle of potion.

Cayang, a small man with a ready smile and an easy-going demeanor, is quick to point out that the movement does not “hate” all Muslims -- only MILF separatists.

By birth

As a young tax collector, Cayang befriended many Muslim elders even though they knew he was an Ilaga.

He became the group’s commander in the farming town of Aleosan by virtue of birth, inheriting the role from his father.

Cayang’s village cuts through pockets of banana farms and rice paddies that are jointly farmed by Christians and Muslims, and the two communities managed to co-exist until MILF rebels launched their raids in August.

The separatists have spread terror throughout Christian communities on Mindanao, killing more than 50 civilians, burning and looting homes and farms and forcing some 500,000 people to seek shelter in relief camps.

With the rebels now splintered into small groups to evade a massive military pursuit, small villages with no police presence remain vulnerable.

Protecting family

“We took up arms to protect our family, our children and community,” Cayang says.

Here in this village, the Ilaga have imposed a curfew and outsiders are screened.

Cayang meets his men in an abandoned house that is now their command post.

It sits on a hillock overlooking the picturesque valley below — but also offers a strategic vantage point against sneak attacks.

An Ilaga scout on horseback thunders down the muddy road, and minutes later a truck full of heavily armed fighters in mismatched fatigues arrives.

They trade combat stories and inspect each other’s amulets over bottles of local rum and pork cooked on an open fire.

On Cayang’s orders, they raise their firearms for inspection, but the weapons are old, some dating back to World War II.

For Cayang, however, courage is more important than the latest guns.

History of atrocities

“There are only three things needed to join our group,” he says. “You have to be brave, you have to have a good heart, so the amulet can choose you, and you have to volunteer yourself.”

The Ilaga have their own history of atrocities — the group’s original members were known to hack their enemies with machetes, and some engaged in cannibalism in the ritualistic belief that it gave them more strength.

Norberto Manero, who killed an Italian priest in 1985 and reportedly ate pieces of his brain, was a member of an Ilaga group that was behind the 1977 massacre of dozens of ethnic tribesmen whom they mistook for Muslim rebel supporters.

“Those stories are true. But the Ilaga no longer does that,” said Commander Joe, a 56-year-old veteran who says murder is a capital offense, but to kill to defend yourself is not.

“They are bad people,” he says of the MILF. Agence France-Presse