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THE
military said Monday it has already cleared two of the
15 barangays in North Cotabato that were occupied by
defiant members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),
barely 24 hours after clearing operations began on
Sunday.
Clashes,
however, still raged in some barangays of the
municipalities of Aleosan, Midsayap, Tulunan, Pikit and
Libungan, swelling the number of evacuees to 18,633
families or 129,000 persons, according to Office of
Civil Defense Administrator Glenn Rabonza.
The
military also started using air assets to flush out the
holdouts.
Lt. Gen.
Cardozo Luna, Armed Forces of the Philippines vice chief
of staff, said soldiers have cleared barangays Upper
Lapak and Lagindingan in Midsayap from members of the
105 Base Command of the MILF, headed by Commander Umbra
Kato, after a heavy firefight on Sunday.
He said
the soldiers were conducting a sweep of the two
barangays on Monday.
“The
barangays were occupied by our forces now. We will allow
the civilians to go back and escort them, but right now,
we are clearing the barangays very carefully because
booby traps might have been left behind. We will return
the civilians and provide them with security so that
they can return to their normal lives,” Luna said.
Luna,
commander of the AFP’s Task Force Mindanao, said
fighting is still intense in the province on Monday,
with the military using its air and land assets
including mortars and howitzers.
The
operations resulted so far in the death of one Army
soldier and the wounding of 12 others.
In Camp
Crame, where officials gave reporters updates on the
clashes, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said the
government is determined to clear the barangays as
“quickly as possible, and get out.”
While
the fighting centers on the five towns, the soldiers and
policemen are also tasked to clear other barangays in
the towns of Northern Kabuntalan and Pigkawayan.
As of 11
a.m. on Monday, AFP deputy chief of staff Lt. Gen.
Rodrigo Maclang said that a total of 14 “engagements”
with the rebels have been recorded since the fighting
officially began on Sunday.
Defense
Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said the soldiers would use
“reasonable and proportionate force” to drive away the
rebels.
The
military on Monday resumed airstrikes in a bid to flush
out the MILF lost command in North Cotabato.
In
Takipan and Dalingawen village, thousands of residents
fled as Philippine Air Force OV-10 war-planes dropped
bombs on the rebel positions, officials said.
Maj.
Randolph Cabangbang, Eastern Mindanao Command deputy
spokesman, said the Cotabato-Davao highway was closed to
motorists from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. after Moro rebels tried
to occupy it.
“Our
troops on the ground have asked for air support to drive
away the rebels because they were too near the highway,”
Cabangbang said.
Lt. Col.
Julieto Ando, Sixth Infantry Division spokesman, said
seven rebels were confirmed dead in their offensive
since Sunday.
On
Sunday night, Cabangbang said 500 guerrillas occupied
the village of Tapikan and one civilian was killed and
two others were missing.
Ghadzali
Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs, said
by phone that members of the cease-fire committee
between government and MILF, including the Malaysian-led
International Monitoring team, held an emergency meeting
in Cotabato City to address the crisis.
“They
will look for measures to address the crisis. We are not
going to war. We are giving primacy to the peace talks,”
Jaafar said.
“The
forces of MILF commander Amilil Umbra Kato will only
reposition his men once members of the Joint Monitoring
Action Team are deployed in the areas they will
[vacate],” he added.
Lenna
Gutierrez, 40, a resident of Takipan, said she will
bring her three kids to Kidapawan City for security
reason.
“We are
not safe here anymore. We learned that our father’s
neighbor was killed last night. His body remained in the
field where there are MILF rebels,” she said.
“The
rebels came. We were told to abandon our home. We were
scared. Now, we have nothing. We left everything and our
crops behind,” said Normina Sahid, 45, an evacuee in
Takipan.
North
Cotabato Gov. Jesus Sacdalan, chairman of the province’s
peace and order council, said hostilities in Aleosan,
Midsayap and Pikit towns displaced 20,000 families or
120,000 individuals.
In
Manila, Senate Majority Leader Kiko Pangilinan called
for genuine political leadership in light of the ongoing
elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
“This
should serve as a reminder to all that the rebellion in
the South would’ve been rendered irrelevant had good
governance and effective leadership prevailed in the
ARMM since its inception in 1990. There is a direct
relationship between the quality of governance and the
quality of life and sadly both have been wanting in ARMM
in particular,” Kiko said.
House
deputy minority leader and Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros
urged the MILF and the government to stop the
hostilities in North Cotabato immediately, as she
expressed dismay over how the government has botched the
peace process.
“The
renewed fighting in North Cotabato goes to show that
when the government bungles the peace negotiation it is
the citizens who suffer,” she said.
“The
peace process is turning into a humanitarian mess. The
imminent refugee crisis is an unacceptable cost of the
government’s mismanagement of the peace process. A peace
process should lead to the protection of life and
property, and yet what’s happening is the opposite.”
She
urged both the government and the MILF to go back to the
negotiating table and start talking about how the
process could resume. (With Rosa May de Guzman) |
