INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines — More than 6,000 persons fled their homes in three villages of Maimbung town in Sulu province on Saturday following the firefight after the joint police and military forces about to arrest the town’s former vice mayor for charges of murder were met with gunfire when they entered his fortified compound.
The intense exchange of fire — which left one policeman dead and wounded 10 other members of the Special Action Force (SAF), a soldier and two civilians — threw residents into panic since the compound of the former town official, Pando Mudjasan, is in a populated area.
Al-Rashid Waradji, the municipal disaster risk reduction and management officer of Maimbung, said 1,244 families (6,284 persons) left their houses in haste after they heard a series of gunfire in Bualoh Lipid village, where personnel of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the local police and soldiers from the Army’s 41st Infantry Battalion were to serve search and arrest warrants on Mudjasan.
“The [residents] fled on foot when they heard the series of gunfire,” Waradji told the Inquirer by the phone on Monday.
He said it was the first time that Maimbung people fled their villages in large numbers. “We had some share of clashes in the past, but this is the first time we encountered a big number of residents fleeing for safety. They were afraid of being caught in the crossfire since the clashes took place in a populated area,” Waradji said.
Displaced residents who came from Barangays Bualoh Lipid, Laum Maimbung, and Poblacion Maimbung were housed in two schools and a gymnasium at the town proper and were provided with food and other basic items.
Some families started returning home on Monday morning after they were assured that their village was already safe, Waradji added.
At large
But Mudjasan, who faces charges for several counts of murder and illegal possession of firearms and explosives, was able to escape, said Maj. Andrew Linao, spokesperson of the Western Mindanao Command based in this city.
Linao identified the slain police officer as Pat. Regim Gacod of the SAF and the wounded SAF members as Capt. Ergie Wanawan; Staff Sergeants Julakbar Jahani and Jadier Alfad; Corporals Alnadzmie Sahirani, Nelvin Roble, Vileo Raven Jariolne, Jayson Cabalquinto, and Lenard Bakidnan; and Patrolmen Jason Davio and Jasper Massagan.
The military withheld the names of the wounded soldiers and two civilians.
Linao said they heard there were four persons from the private armed men of Mudjasan who were killed but this was yet to be confirmed.
Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan, in a statement posted on Monday on social media, blasted Mudjasan for his actions: “To act with impunity and to challenge the enforcers from exercising their mandates — resulting in the displacement of innocent civilians and loss of lives… is the height of defiance against authority and the power of the state.”