Barangay watchman dead in MILF attack in NCotabato village

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines  --- Marauding Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerillas on Sunday gunned down a barangay watchman as they raided, for the third time since May, a farming village in Tulunan town in the second district of the province.

The fatality was identified as Don-Don Palomo, a member of the Barangay Auxilliary Police Team in Barangay Maybula, a farming area in Tulunan.

Palomo was among dozens of villagers who engaged a band of MILF rebels who sought to  to intrude into their  community.

Rebels had repeatedly attacked settlements in Barangay Maybula, took farm animals of peasants at gunpoint and shot houses with assault rifles as they fled toward a hinterland at the border of Columbio, Sultan Kudarat and Datu Paglas town in Maguindanao.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Mendoza, chairperson of the provincial peace and order council, said policemen have been deployed in Barangay Maybula to investigate on the latest attack.

Local officials said MILF forces kept coming back, threatening  local farmers to leave farms.

MILF spokesman Von Al-Haq confirmed Sunday’s hostilities in Barangay Maybula, but said the trouble in the area was an offshoot of the squabbles by Moro and non-Moro farmers over parcels of farming land.

Residents of Barangay Maybula have long sought the military's help in deterring MILF attacks.