More bloodshed feared as land conflict brews

KIDAPAWAN CITY—Tension remains high in a village in Antipas, North Cotabato, where a clash between two groups of settlers and land claimants led to the killing of two persons, including a 10-year-old boy, on Friday.

The killings took place as armed Manobo natives and a group of Christian settlers fought over competing land claims in the remote village, according to police.

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

The violence started when the Manobo tribesmen, police said, demanded that Christian settlers in the area pull out. They are fighting over a 42-hectare tract of land that the Manobos claim to be part of their ancestral domain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limpad, who resides in the adjoining village of Malatab, said the Manobo community inside the 42-hectare contested area in New Pontevedra had been 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.

Police said they were investigating how the warring parties were able to acquire firearms.

A team of soldiers and policemen was also deployed to the village to prevent more bloodshed, the Antipas police said in its report. Williamor Magbanua and Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao