Another Teduray leader slain in Maguindanao

CONDEMNATION This poster condemning the death of Teduray tribe leader Juanito Promboy, the indigenous peoples’ representative of Barangay Tuayan, Datu Hoffer Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur, is circulated on social media on Tuesday, a day after he was killed in an ambush in the town. PHOTO COURTESY OF BTA PARLIAMENT MEMBER FROILYN MENDOZA

COTABATO CITY, BARMM, Philippines — Another leader of the indigenous Teduray tribe was ambushed and killed along the dirt road of Barangay Tuayan in Datu Hoffer Ampatuan town of Maguindanao del Sur province, bringing to 65 the number of non-Moro indigenous people (IP) leaders slain in the two Maguindanao provinces since 2018, an IP leader said.

Juanito Promboy, 48, a village councilman representing the indigenous peoples of the town’s Barangay Tuayan, was with a companion on board a motorbike on their way to Barangay Limpongo when ambushed by their motorcycle-riding attackers at 2 p.m. on Monday, said Lt. Albert Pansoy, chief of Datu Hoffer Ampatuan police.

READ: Teduray folk flee from armed men who looted their village in Maguindanao

Police rushed the two victims to the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Hospital, where physicians pronounced Promboy dead, while his companion Ronald Angit of Barangay Timanan, South Upi town, was still being treated.

Jennevie Cornelio, a leader of Inged Fintailan (women’s commission) of the Timuay Justice and Governance (TJG) of the Teduray-Lambangian tribe, said Promboy was the 65th Teduray leader killed in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte since 2018, the year when the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) was approved by Congress. The BOL, which was ratified the following year, created the expanded autonomous region of the Bangsamoro.

Cornelio said the number of attacks against the non-Moro IPs in the Bangsamoro continued to rise.

Fight vs land grabbers

Timuay Labi Leticio Datuwata, supreme tribal chief of the Teduray-Lambangian tribe TJG, said he was saddened by the fact that since the signing of the peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the eventual creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), “We hardly ever felt peace in our communities,” he said.

“These people are fighting for their ancestral domain against land grabbers,” he said, referring to the slain members of the tribe.

Promboy was deeply involved in issues confronting the Teduray-Lambangian tribe, one of the largely marginalized non-Moro tribes in the MILF-dominated Bangsamoro, Datuwata said.

Datuwata said there were groups trying to violently push them away from their ancestral lands. He refused to name the aggressors, however. “My appeal is for BARMM to issue land titles to ancestral lands of Teduray tribespeople and other IP communities in BARMM to help bring about peace in the IP communities,” he said.

He added a huge number of IPs were still in evacuation areas after they were either driven away by armed hostilities or were actually harassed in their lands.

“This attack on innocent tribal leaders and civilians from the Teduray tribe is a reprehensible act that must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” said Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Parliament Member Froilyn Mendoza.

“Such violence not only inflicts immense suffering on the victims and their communities but also undermines peace and stability in the region,” she added.

‘Deeply concerning’

Mendoza, who represents the non-Moro IPs in the BTA Parliament, also said she was alarmed that the latest attack against a defenseless IP came while President Marcos was in Maguindanao del Norte promoting peace.

The timing of the assault, coinciding with the visit of the President to Barira, Maguindanao Del Norte, was deeply concerning, she said.

“It stresses the critical need to work together and address the fundamental drivers of conflict in the region to advance enduring peace and development,” Mendoza said but did not elaborate.

She urged the police to take bold steps to prevent the attack against IPs in Datu Hoffer Ampatuan and nearby towns.