ZAMBOANGA CITY—Government troops pursuing the suspects in a Jan. 26 ambush in Sirawai town, Zamboanga del Norte province that killed five had sought refuge in a community of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members, halting their arrest operation.
Col. Peter Garceniego Jr., commander of the Army’s 42nd Infantry Battalion, said the suspects blended with the villagers of Barangay Doña Cecilia as soldiers and police were closing in on them on Monday.
According to Garceniego, there was no MILF camp in the area but the community is known to be populated by members and former guerrillas of the MILF which armed wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, is being decommissioned in keeping with a 2014 peace deal with the government.
“We stopped from there to prevent possible animosity between the Philippine government and the MILF,” he explained.
Garceniego added that the suspects were identified by witnesses during the attack in Barangay Piña.
A report from the Zamboanga Peninsula police office said the soldiers and police exchanged gunfire for about an hour with the armed men who are believed to belong to the Lumirang criminal group. Nobody was reported hurt.
A checkpoint is now established in Doña Cecilia by the Sirawai municipal police station and the 2nd Zamboanga del Norte Police Mobile Force Company as part of the manhunt against the suspects.
Family feud
The Army said a longstanding family feud sparked the ambush that killed Balubuan village chief Alih Manangca, his brother Anie, sister Anisa, nephew Alfahad, and another relative identified as Shilben Musaddin Basa.
Two other family members, Alwaf Basa Manangca and Norman Darus Tulino, were critically injured.
One of the survivors was able to identify their attackers and provided the names of the 10 suspects.
According to Garceniego, the feud or rido stemmed from an unresolved land dispute in 2016 that pitted the Manangcas with their relatives in the Lumingis, Hassan, Wahab, ang Angsa families.
Renewed animosity flared on December 22, 2022, when Anie shot and killed Jarin Angsa and Ibrahim Hassan, both residents of Barangay Panabutan in Sirawai.
Anie, a civilian militia, was reportedly provoked by the two victims that ended in a gun duel. At that time, he was one of the detailed security personnel for a government team surveying land for a housing project.
Anie’s case was dismissed for lack of interest among the victims’ families, and he was released from a two-week detention.
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