Another IP leader slain in Maguindanao Sur

Maguindanao del Sur map. INQUIRER FILES

COTABATO CITY—Another leader of the indigenous Teduray-Lambangian tribe was killed at Barangay Mantao of Datu Hoffer town in Maguindanao del Sur on Sunday, adding to the long list of unsolved killings of non-Moro indigenous people (IP) within the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Leticio Datuwata, supreme leader of the tribe’s Timuay Justice and Governance (TJG), said Baywan Angan, 40, a leader of the Lambangian tribe, was fishing in the Riyumgan river with his wife and children when three armed men from the same village arrived.

Datuwata, who talked to Angan’s wife after the incident, said Angan had offered the men coffee and part of their lunch. They were already having lunch by the river when the men asked the wife and children to go home as they would help Angan fish in the river.

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Around 3:30 p.m., the wife heard shots but it was only around 5 p.m. when somebody informed them that Angan was killed.

According to Datuwata, no one dared go to the river toward nightfall so that they were only able to retrieve the body the following day.

Angan was the 85th IP to be killed in the Maguindanao provinces since 2018, the year when Congress approved the Bangsamoro Organic Law that paved for the creation of the Bangsamoro region.

Rising frustration

Datuwata said they started counting the killings of fellow Tedurays and Lambangian since that year because they thought that the setting up of the new political entity called Bangsamoro with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) at the helm would finally put an end to the killings that had been going on in their ancestral lands for a very long time.

But the killings did not stop and Datuwata expressed frustration over the government’s continued inaction.

“Maybe, they want to kill all of us so that they can easily take away our ancestral lands, then better finish us all because I never see the government lifting a hand to solve these killings,” Datuwata said.

“The TJG no longer issues any statement,” he added. “An IP leader was killed on Nov. 1 and another on Nov. 8 but we’ve grown tired of issuing statements since the government is not doing anything about these killings,” he said.

Datuwata said the perpetrators of Angan’s killing were known in the community, adding that they were identified with the Islamic State-inspired group Dawlah Islamiya. He also said that Angan was made to dig his own grave before he was killed.

The spot report issued by the police however said that the gunmen were still unidentified.

Police Lt. Albert Pansoy, chief of the Datu Hoffer police, described Angan as a former village councilor and resident of Barangay Mantao, a village about 30 kilometers from the town center and accessible only on foot or horseback. Datuwata said Mantao is adjacent to Barangay Datalpandan of Guindulungan town also of Maguindanao del Sur, where Camp Badre, one of the six camps claimed by the MILF was located.

Datuwata said the area, including Camp Badre, formed part of the ancestral land of the Teduray-Lambangian tribe.

Pansoy said the killing could be related to the ancestral land.

The group Non-Moro IP Youth Network condemned the killing and described Angan as a human rights worker and peace advocate in the mountains of Datu Hoffer.