Clash mars 3-month lull in Maguindanao town

COTABATO CITY — Soldiers figured in a four-hour gunbattle with Moro guerrillas in Matanog, Maguindanao yesterday, breaking a three-month lull in hostilities in the area which is covered by the newly expanded ceasefire between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Local officials confirmed the incident, even quoting sources in Barangay Bugasan Sur in Matanog that the Army’s 603rd Infantry Brigade, which has jurisdiction over the area, suffered casualties in the firefight. The military belied this.

The civil-relations office of the 6th Infantry Division based here cited initial feedback from the 603rd IB based at Camp Abubakar that the clash erupted when "lawless elements" opened fire on soldiers patrolling Sitio Magapo in Bugasan Sur.

Bugasan Sur, traversed by the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway, is not far away from Barangay Langkong, also in Matanog, the known gateway to Camp Abubakar, the MILF’s former bastion and now a peace zone.

Half of Sitio Magapo, according to sources in Matanog’s political community, is controlled by local forces of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which forged a peace pact with the government on Sept. 2, 1996.

"It appears that local MNLF members were the ones who clashed with the soldiers patrolling their communities," said one of the sources.

Another source, a Muslim preacher, said it could also be possible that the gunmen who clashed with the soldiers could be members of the MILF, whose fighters are now back in Bugasan Sur, tilling their lands there with the help of different government agencies as part of efforts to rehabilitate war-torn communities along the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway.