Brig. Gen. Eduardo Lena, commander of the Army’s 54th Engineering Brigade, said the wounded engineers belong to a contingent that had built almost a hundred low-cost shelters in Buliok which local and national officials inaugurated last month.
The Buliok complex at the boundary of Pikit, North Cotabato and Pagalungan, Maguindanao, used to be an enclave of MILF guerrillas until the military overran it last February after a week-long offensive.
"Until now we cannot believe that they (were) ambushed treacherously when people there knew from the start that we are non-combatants and that we are there to help rebuild their communities from the devastation (wreaked by) recent hostilities," Lena lamented.
Lena said his wounded men, who he refused to identify pending notification of their families, were on their way to the Pikit town proper from a project site on board a civilian vehicle when suspected Moro rebels fired at them with assault rifles.
"Our men were forced to return fire with their very limited firepower," he said.
The ambushers, Lena said, fled when Army soldiers and Marines began arriving at the scene.
Lena said they are convinced that local MILF forces were responsible for the ambush.
"No other armed group exists in the area, except the MILF," Lena said.
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Parouk Hussin, whose office is funding the housing projects of the 54th Engineering Brigade in the Buliok complex, said he has asked the mayors of Datu Montawal and Pagalungan towns to help defuse the tension spawned by the ambush.
Hussin said he would also ask the government-MILF’s joint ceasefire committee to help determine if local secessionist forces were indeed involved in the ambush.
"Steps are being undertaken now to ensure the continuity of the Bangsamoro Moro Pabahay project there," Hussin said.
Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said more members of their Sallam (Peace) Unit, composed of Muslim soldiers, some of them Islamic missionaries, were dispatched to the Buliok complex yesterday to intensify the military’s confidence-building measures with the local folk.