Police tag Moro guerrillas in North Cotabato attacks

COTABATO CITY – Police have tagged Moro rebels in the killing of three barangay watchmen and the slay attempt on a former provincial board member in North Cotabato the other day.

Police identified the slain tanods as Romy Parin, Noel Penuela and Gilbert Rafael, of Barangay Lipaga, a secluded district of mixed Muslim and Christian settlers in Mlang, North Cotabato.  

Parin, a former barangay councilman, and his two companions were on their way to an interior sitio to verify the presence of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels extorting money from farmers there when the guerrillas opened fire, killing them on the spot.

The ambushers took the assault rifles and a shoulder-fired M-79 grenade launcher of the village watchmen before escaping to a swampy area on the eastern side of the Liguasan Marsh, a known lair of MILF rebels with links to both the al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah.

Mlang’s peace and order council, in a statement, identified the leader of the MILF rebels responsible for the ambush as one Commander Kid, whose group has been collecting “protection money” from farming communities in North Cotabato.

North Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmanuel Piñol said the recent attacks by Moro rebels on isolated communities in North Cotabato, which started on Christmas eve, show that the MILF is insincere in its search for a peaceful settlement to the secessionist conflict in Mindanao.

Police also tagged MILF rebels in the ambush on former provincial board member Shirley Macasarte and her companions the other day at the boundary of Alamada and Banisilan towns.

Macasarte, who sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and some relatives and bodyguards were on their way to Barangay Salama in Banisilan when they were waylaid.

The incident forced dozens of Muslim and Christian families to flee their homes and seek refuge in public schools in nearby barangays.