Maguindanao town mayor urges Muslims to help protect Christians from attacks
DATU ABDULLAH SANGKI, Maguindanao, Philippines — Mayor Mariam Sangki-Mangudadatu of this town rallied Muslim residents to help protect local Christians, even as she condemned the brigands who killed at least eight people during the Christmas Eve attacks in two sub-villages here and in nearby Ampatuan town.
Sangki-Mangudadatu said killings were “unjust” and “inhuman.”
“And so we condemn the group that perpetrated this. Our municipality, Datu Abdullah Sangki, is one of the most peaceful towns in the Province of Maguindanao, where the Christians and the Muslims live peacefully together,” she said in a statement written in Filipino.
Sangki-Mangudadatu told her Muslim constituents that the attacks were the handiwork of a group with “anti-peace” agenda, adding that the victims were killed defenseless in Sitio (sub-village) Kakal here and in Sabadoan in nearby Ampatuan.
“Let us stand up for them at all cost,” she added.
Abu Misri Mama, the spokesperson of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), admitted their forces were behind the attacks and claimed the victims were armed.
Former Maguindanao Board Member Victor Samama said the province’s Muslim and Christian residents should be looking back to the years when they protected each other from harm, instead of resorting to enmity.
Samama and other leaders made the appeal the day after the killings, which coincided with the reunion of the Muslim and Christian alumni of a Catholic school in Datu Piang town, and the commemoration of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad or Maulidin Nabi, corresponding this year to December 26.
Unlike ordinary local Muslims, extremist groups like the BIFF and Abu Sayyaf do not believe in offering food and charity in commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad
Samama recounted that the Notre Dame of Dulawan, the only Catholic school in Maguindanao province, had saved the lives of the Muslim and Christian residents not once but several times in the past and in recent years. SFM
