MILF rebels get no ‘tax,’ threaten P650-M cassava plantation farm

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Local officials in three neighboring Maguindanao towns have called on the military to "continue flushing out" secessionist rebels roaming in their communities, posing threat to the planned P650-million worth cassava farm in the area involving marginalized Muslim farmers.

Soldiers and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels were still shooting at each other yesterday in clandestine encounters, which started Thursday, in the towns of Shariff Aguak, Datu Piang and Talayan, all in the second district of Maguindanao.

Sources from Maguindanao’s Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) said the trouble erupted when MILF rebels showed forced in Barangay Tatapan in Shariff Aguak and threatened to harm hapless villagers if they refuse to shell out protection money.

Four MILF guerrillas were killed while a soldier was wounded in the initial skirmishes in the area, which began when the rebels reportedly opened fire on approaching soldiers sent by the Army’s 301st Brigade on behest of farmers complaining of their presence in their villages.

Capt. Antonio Arriba, acting civil-military relations chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the skirmish could have been avoided had the rebels, some of them long wanted for various criminal offenses, peacefully vacated Barangay Tatapan.

The MILF’s spokesman, Eid Kabalu, claimed the military’s encroachment last Thursday into known rebel territories in Shariff Aguak, Datu Piang and Talayan precipitated the hostilities.

"They used attack helicopters and cannons to pound MILF positions in the three towns. It was a serious violation of the ceasefire," Kabalu said.

Arriba said the hostilities in Shariff Aguak virtually spilled over to nearby communities when other MILF forces harassed populated areas as diversions to ease the pressure soldiers exerted on the group that first displayed firepower in Barangay Tatapan of the same town.

Informed PPOC sources said the rebels in the three towns started regrouping after Maguindanao Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan and representatives of a Manila-based agricultural firm signed early this month an agreement on joint establishment of P650-million worth of contiguous cassava farms in the three adjoining municipalities.

The projects involved impoverished Muslim farmers whose farms, according to the sources, were previously controlled by rebels that levied from them excessive revolutionary taxes.

Farmers in these areas, according to the PPOC, have since been clamoring for the police and military to drive away the rebels from their farm. — John Unson