Followers of losing bets torch houses in Maguindanao village

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao , Philippines  – More than a hundred ethnic Maguindanaon families have fled their homes after armed men identified with defeated local candidates set on fire more than 20 houses in a village in Montawal, Maguindanao yesterday.

Senior Superintendent Alex Lineses, Maguindanao police director, said soldiers and policemen are now in pursuit of the armed partisans who burned houses in Barangay Bulod, Montawal town.

Lineses said investigators are certain that the attack was in retaliation for the loss of certain local candidates in Barangay Bulod.

The community’s most senior religious leader, Ustadz Akmad Kadtig, 50, said the armed men herded the villagers in one spot while they set their houses on fire using kerosene and dried coconut palms.

The attackers also burned the farming equipment of the villagers before escaping to a nearby marshland, bringing with them more than a dozen water buffaloes.

The armed men also torched a makeshift multipurpose shelter in the center of the barangay, where village leaders held dialogues to settle conflicts among their constituents.

Lineses said the attackers are identified with losing candidates but declined to identify them pending the filing of cases against them.

Lt. Col. Benjamin Hao, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said elements of the 7th Infantry Battalion were helping the police run after the arsonists.

Hao said they would help work out the return of the villagers to their homes.