WAO, Lanao del Sur—Authorities are keeping a close watch on tension between Visayan settlers and Maranao villagers in this town following a series of killings that is being linked to a simmering feud between the two communities.
At least five people, four of them minors, had been killed two weeks ago.
Mayor Elvino Balicano Jr. said a task force had been formed to investigate the killings. “We don’t want an escalation of hostilities,” said the mayor.
Majority of the town’s population of 40,000 are Christian, mostly Visayan, settlers.
Balicano said the tension started when Jilvie Benebente, a Visayan teenage girl, was killed after she was allegedly gang-raped on April 24. The girl was tending her family’s water buffalo in Barangay Park Area when attacked by three unidentified men.
Balicano said there was an initial suspicion that the attackers were high on drugs.
A police investigator, who did not want to be identified for lack of authority to speak to media, said Visayan residents of Park Area suspect Maranao men to be behind the attack.
A day after Benebente was killed, unidentified armed men stormed the community of Magampong and fired at four houses, which resulted in the deaths of minors Almira, Imra and Anifa, all surnamed Sumayan. The Sumayans were Maranao. A 13-year-old Visayan, Cristan John Albaino, and several others were wounded in the attack.
Maranao residents, the police investigator said, suspect Visayan men to be behind the gun attack.
Chief Insp. Erickson Baniaga, town police chief, said some suspects in the Benebente killing had been invited for questioning but he did not identify them and their ethnic backgrounds.
Mario Pagayon, Park Area village chair, said village officials are working closely with authorities to identify the perpetrators of both attacks.
He also confirmed that there had been growing distrust between Visayan and Maranao residents of the area these days.
“We are trying to address that,” said Pagayon, a Visayan.
Balicano said the identification and arrest of the suspects could help defuse the tension.
Haroun Alrashid Lucman, a native of Lanao del Sur and vice governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the creation of the task force was timely and could help defuse the tension.
Drieza Lininding, a key member of a peace and justice movement in Lanao del Sur, said Maranao residents of Barangay Park Area had fled for fear of their lives.
The Maranao community in the area is “defenseless.” Charlie Senase and Allan Nawal, Inquirer Mindanao