2 killed in clash over land claims in N. Cotabato

KIDAPAWAN CITY — Two persons –including a 10-year old boy — were killed when armed Manobo natives and a group of Christian settlers clashed over contesting land claims in Antipas, North Cotabato on Friday, police, said.

Quoting witnesses, the police reported that armed tribesmen shot and killed a Christian farmer tending his farm in a forested area of Barangay (village) New Pontevedra.

The violence started when the Manobo tribesmen, the police said, insisted on the pullout of Christian settlers from a 42-hectare land area they have been claiming as part of their ancestral domain.

Eric Paje, a resident of New Pontevedra, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Christian villagers have been tilling the land for years now.

He said the farmer, identified as Herman Origin, refused to vacate the land he was tilling and died when shot by armed tribesmen.

This prompted other villagers to engage the attackers, he said.

Paje said the armed tribesmen only withdrew when police authorities arrived in the village.

Marcelo Limpad, a Manobo tribal leader in Antipas, gave a different version of the violence.

Limpad said gunmen — wearing skimasks — stormed a tribal community on Friday and killed a 10-year old Manobo boy in the process.

Limpad, who lives in the adjoining village of Malatab, said the Manobo community inside a 42-hectare ancestral domain area in New Pontevedra had regularly come under attack by unidentified armed men.

“They are outsiders, they were not natives,” Limpad told a local radio station.

He said fearful for their safety, some Manobo farmers had since left the area and settled in the border of North Cotabato and Bukidnon.

Meanwhile, the police said they were investigating why the warring parties were able to acquire firearms.

A team of soldiers and policemen was also deployed in the village to prevent more violence from developing, the Antipas police said in its report.