MAITUM, Sarangani—Some 700 families or almost 3,000 individuals from four barangays of this town have evacuated to the municipal gymnasium and the Malalag Central Elementary School following the encounter between government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) forces in the villages of Mindupok and Maguling Wednesday.

The evacuees, composed mostly of children and elderly women from among the settlers, Christians and indigenous T’bolis, are being fed by the municipal government through its Social Welfare and Development (SWD) Office and the Municipal Disaster Coordinating Council (MDCC).

Raymundo Mayled, an SWD staffer assisting the evacuees at the municipal gymnasium, said there were other house-based evacuees who took refuge at relatives’ houses in the town center who have not been listed.

Mayled identified Ticulab, Mindupok, Upo and Maguling as the barangays affected.

Maguling barangay chairman Remegio Rivac, who described his village as 50-percent Christian and 50-percent Muslim, said that “almost all houses” vacated by the residents were allegedly ransacked by armed men believed to be members of the MILF.

Civilians at the evacuation center confirmed having heard their houses being looted of “rice, jewelries, cash and other things easy for the looters to carry.”

Liloy Alisin, a member of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit, who was the first to respond to the firing incident at barangay Ticulab at around 6 a.m. Wednesday, was reportedly fired upon by the rebels. He died on the spot and his body was recovered Thursday morning.

Alisin’s son, identified by his grandmother Leonora Brakero, 79, as “Neneng,” sustained a bullet wound on his upper left arm.

“Liloy was armed but was not able to fire a shot because the rebels hit him first. Neneng was unarmed,” said Brakero in an interview at a classroom that serves as her temporary shelter with six other families.

Rubylyn Nabran, the municipal assessor of this town, who is member of the MDCC, said they had yet to consolidate reports of looted properties.

“We were supposed to distribute relief goods to flood victims today, but we are again faced with this new problem. After the natural calamity hit us—this man-made disaster again,” she said.

Fr. Ricky Legario, Maitum’s parish priest who, since Wednesday, had spent most of his time at the evacuation centers, said the incident has “developed hatred from some people but we in the church shall really try to put in place a mechanism that will help our people in the process of healing.”

This developed as the Joint Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, accompanied by the Bantay Cease-fire and the International Monitoring Team, came to “reposition” the Army and MILF forces away from each other in order to allow “a respectable distance that would not make them fire their guns against each other.”

Rexall Kaalim, coordinator of the Bantay Cease-fire, said that after the troops are repositioned, “we may put up a buffer force between the two of them. But this has yet to be agreed upon by the government and the MILF.”

In areas of similar fighting in the past, the government, MILF, IMT and Bantay Cease-fire organized a Joint Monitoring Action Team which, on a 24/7 basis, served as buffer force between the soldiers and guerrillas. 

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