MILF executes Christian couple

COTABATO CITY - A band of suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels executed last Monday a Christian couple they abducted while fleeing to an evacuation site in Carmen town in South Cotabato, police and military sources said yesterday.

A survivor in the killing frenzy, farmer Julieto de la Cerna, who escaped while their captors shot the couple one after the other, is now under the protective custody of the military.

The Army's 602nd brigade, in a report to the 6th Infantry Division based here, identified the victims as Junito Antenado, 23, and his wife Angga, 20, of Sitio Danao in Barangay Ma-lapag in Carmen.

Capt. Lino Aso, spokesman for the 6th Infantry

Division, said they will have the twin killings documented and used as evidence against the separatist Muslim rebels in future peace negotiations between them and the government.

De la Cerna, in an initial statement given to the police, said they had just harvested their crops from their farm in Sitio Danao and were on their way to the barangay proper when about 40 MILF rebels led by Rudy Antingan blocked their path and forcibly took them to Maridagao, a district in nearby Pikit town.

The Muslim rebels allegedly interrogated them in the Maguindanaon dialect and forced them to admit they were spying for the military.

The rebels then dragged Antenado and his wife into a vacant lot nearby, ordered them to kneel and shot them successively in the nape.

De la Cerna said he managed to flee as the rebels rejoiced around the bodies of the victims. He proceeded to an Army detachment in Barangay Malapag in Carmen and asked for help.

Local officials in Carmen were exerting efforts to recover the bodies of the couple.