BIFF rebs occupy 2 villages; 15,000 flee

PIKIT, North Cotabato—Hundreds of renegade rebels occupied at least two villages in this town and were advancing to a third one and clashing with rival Moro guerrillas in several other villages, forcing more than 15,000 people to flee, authorities said Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Orlando Edralin, commander of 7th Infantry Battalion, told the Inquirer that the remote villages of Kabasalan and Barongis became no man’s land after more than 250 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) took full control of the areas.

The villages of Kabasalan, Barongis, Buliok, Bago Inged, Bulol and Rajamuda, all in Pikit, North Cotabato province, and Kalbugan and Buliok in Pagalungan town, Maguindanao province, have become virtual ghost communities after villagers fled the gun battles that started on Saturday.

Tahira Kalantongan, Pikit municipal disaster chief, said at least 15,000 people were in evacuation sites in Pikit and Pagalungan. The number of displaced families can go higher as more people continue to flee.

The village of Kalbugan in Pagalungan, site of a clash between Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters under the leadership of Jack Abbas and BIFF members led by Kagi Karialan, was empty when disaster officials came to visit Tuesday.

Except for several heavily armed MILF men resting under coconut trees, the village was fully deserted.

“There appears to be a deafening silence,” Kalantongan said, describing the villages of Kabasalan and Bulol in Pikit.

Kalantongan said some houses were torched in Bulol, but she couldn’t tell who did it.

Rosemarie Alcebar, a social worker, said seven evacuation centers had been set up.

Edralin said that while the attacks were believed to have started from a land dispute, “it now appears that it is more of an organizational fighting.”

He said that from being just a “rido,” or clan war, the fighting had become one between the BIFF and the MILF.

But Abu Misri Mama, speaking for the BIFF, said his group was not at war with the MILF. He said the BIFF was fighting with only Abbas, “not the whole of the MILF.”

Ameril Umra Kato, BIFF founding chair, has written to the central committee of the MILF saying the BIFF has not declared war against its rival group.

Mama accused Abbas of being bribed by North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Mendoza to prevent the entry of the BIFF in North Cotabato. The governor denied this.

Alcebar said BIFF members were now advancing and threatening to occupy another village, Bulol.

She quoted a village official as saying the BIFF “is moving forward.”

Fighting between the BIFF and the MILF started on Feb. 13, days after 44 police Special Action Force (SAF) commandos were killed as they tried to leave the town of Mamasapano in Maguindanao after an operation to get international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan.”

The MILF was accused of giving shelter to Marwan, which the rebel group denied.

On Saturday, clashes broke out between the MILF and the BIFF in the village of Kalbugan in Pagalungan, Maguindanao. The clashes were between the BIFF group under Gani Saligan and the MILF unit under Abbas.

Datukon Ampuan, known as Commander Falcon of the MILF, was killed. Mama claimed four more MILF men had been killed.

An official of the government panel in the Coordinating Committee on Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) said the fighting was part of the MILF’s effort to show sincerity in the peace process by running after BIFF rebels being blamed for the Jan. 25 massacre of SAF commandos in the operation to get Marwan in Mamasapano.

The MILF, said Brig. Gen. Carlito Galvez, who chairs the government panel in the CCCH, was “pressured by the incident in Mamasapano.”

“They are working to regain public trust,” Galvez said. Reports from Edwin Fernandez and Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao