Low-level truce with MILF on

COTABATO CITY — Soldiers and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, locked in showdown since last week in two Maguindanao towns, agreed to observe starting at 7 a.m. yesterday a low-level truce brokered by the Moro National Liberation Front.

But at noontime yesterday, village officials in Datu Piang and Shariff Aguak towns, scene of sporadic rebel-military clashes since early this month, urged the military to return to their barangays as many MILF guerillas reportedly ignored the local ceasefire and have not even repositioned themselves away from their villages.

Engineer Norie Unas, Maguindanao’s provincial administrator, said barangay officials in Shariff Aguak have complained that rebel forces, led by Ustadz Amiril Ombra, were still roaming their communities, brandishing their firearms.

"The people are worried because soldiers have already pulled out from these areas in keeping with the low-level ceasefire," Unas said.

The MNLF’s secretary-general, Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, said the low-level peace pact directs both sides to reposition their combatants away from farming villages in the two adjoining towns and to allow local leaders and members of the religious community to peacefully resolve local security problems.

Sema said the Council of 15, the MNLF’s new central leadership, together with Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza, intervened in the conflict to prevent further dislocation of civilians and to cushion its adverse impact on socio-economic projects in the two towns of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development.

"This was initiated in coordination with the office of Atty. Dureza, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez and Presidential Assistant for Special Concerns Norberto Gonzalez. All of us don’t want the problem to get out of hand," Sema said.

Pocket clashes erupted at the border of the two municipalities over the weekend after MILF rebels opened fire on a group of soldiers and policemen serving warrants for the arrest of 24 people implicated in the Sept. 2 ambush in Shariff Aguak of Maguindanao Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan.

Among those wanted for the ambush were three foreign-trained MILF commanders, including Ombra, a known protégé of the front’s reclusive leader, Ustadz Hashim Salamat.

The spate of running gunbattles between rebels and soldiers in the area first erupted early this month when two feuding Muslim clans battled for control of strategic patches of lands at the border of Datu Piang and Midsayap, North Cotabato.

The tension escalated last week when MILF rebels siding with one of the two clans opened fire on soldiers and civilian volunteers sent to pacify the two warring groups.

The hostilities have displaced 1,347 families, according to Dr. Tahir Sulaik, chief of Maguindanao’s Integrated Provincial Health Office.