Army commander survives ambush

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — An Army battalion commander survived an ambush by Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas at the boundary of Pikit, North Cotabato and Pagalungan, Maguindanao the other day.

Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said two soldiers escorting Col. Alexander Estomo, commander of the 6th Infantry Battalion, were slightly wounded in the attack.

Ando identified the wounded soldiers as Pfcs. Rey Amar and Ronald Deosana.

He said Estomo and his escorts, along with other soldiers in separate vehicles, were on their way to the 6th ID headquarters here when their ambushers, positioned at one side of a farm-to-market road connecting the Buliok complex to the Pikit town proper, fired at them with B-40 rockets and automatic weapons.

Although outnumbered, Estomo and his men managed to return fire, killing five of their ambushers, three of them identified as close relatives of the MILF’s reclusive leader, Hashim Salamat.

Estomo, a battle-hardened military man whose unit was just redeployed to the neighboring towns of Pikit and Pagalungan last month from Sulu, was unscathed.

Despite the ambush, Ando said the 6th IB will remain in defensive posture and will not embark on retaliatory attacks.

"In fact, Col. Estomo is keen on implementing various joint civil-military projects in Pikit and Pagalungan to prove to the people there that while the military is ready to quell security threats in the two towns using force, it will always opt for a peaceful means of addressing local security concerns," Ando said.

The ambush, according to Ando, heightened anew the tension in the surroundings of Pikit and Pagalungan, scene of fierce MILF-military clashes last month.