Two IEDs Recovered in North Cotabato Town

KIDAPAWAN CITY  – Two powerful improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were recovered along the highway in M’lang town in North Cotabato, around 7:30 p.m. yesterday, police officials said.

Inspector Rolando Dillera, deputy chief of police of M’lang, said that both IEDs were fashioned from a 60-mm mortar with a blasting cap, detonating cord and a clock as the triggering device.

Dillera said it was a balut vendor that informed them of the suspicious package left in front of a restaurant along M.H. Del Pilar Street in Poblacion, M’lang.

The vendor told authorities that an unidentified male person left the package just few feet away from a concrete road pavement along the highway minutes before the recovery, who then boarded a vehicle and sped towards an unknown direction.

 “There were at least two people that were seen roaming around the place minutes before the vendor found the package,” said Dillera.

An hour later, elements of the Explosives and Ordnance Disposal Team of the Army arrived at the place and defused the IEDs.

Dillera said the bombs recovered in M’lang town looked like the explosives recovered and defused last January in Kidapawan City.

“We have yet to find out as to who might be behind the planting of these bombs,” said Dillera. 

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Malu Cadelina Manar | Manila Bulletin | March 7, 2013 | Article Link

Rebels raid village, seize arms cache

KIDAPAWAN CITY - Some 60-armed members of the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) raided a Moro community in a town in Makilala, North Cotabato, and carted away 16 firearms, at 3:15 p.m. last Saturday, an Army official said.

Lt. Manuel Gatus, commander of the Charlie Company of the 57th Infantry Battalion, said the rebels arrived on foot at Sitio Lacobe in Barangay Malabuan in Makilala town and pretended they were soldiers from the 38th Infantry Battalion allegedly tasked to get the villagers' firearms for inspection.

"The villagers, mostly members of a Maguindanaon tribe, were told to gather at the village center for a meeting and while this was on going, some of the rebels forcibly entered the houses and confiscated whatever firearms they could recover from the place," Gatus said.

Gatus said the rebels confiscated eight home-made Uzi pistols, five home-made Ingram pistols, two 38 caliber revolvers, and an M-79 grenade launcher.

The guns, said Gatus, are owned by the Baclid family and their relatives, many of whom are elements of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu).

The raid, the military official stressed, happened two weeks after the decades-old land conflict between the Baclid family and the Ilonggo settlers in the village was finally resolved through years of negotiations and interventions from the government, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), in particular.

The rebels are reportedly against the conflict resolution saying it was “unfair” and “unjust” on the part of the settlers.

Records from DAR showed a wide area of the land in conflict was given to the Baclid family.

The Baclids have long claimed sitio Lacobe as part of their ancestral land.

"In the 70s, during the wars in Mindanao, the Baclids were driven away from their lands. But in the 90s, when everything has returned to normalcy, they returned to their homes. They were surprised, however, to see Ilonggos tilling their lands," said Gatus, citing as basis the account of the Baclids.

The Ilonggos, however, claimed they bought the lands from landowners and other residents of the place. They showed as proof their land titles.

Gatus said that as soon as they confirmed reports the rebels raided the place and carted the villagers’ firearms they immediately sent teams to run after the NPAs whom they believed have set up bases along the boundary of Makilala and Tulunan towns in North Cotabato and in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat.

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Malu Cadeliña Manar | Sun Star Davao | February 27, 2013 | Article Link

'Spy plane' crashes in Kidapawan

NORTH COTABATO -- An aircraft believed to be a US spy plane crashed in Kidapawan City on Sunday evening.

A spot report from Kidapawan City police showed that the caretakers of a farm lot owned by Cotabato Representative Bernardo Pinol (2nd district) located in Barangay Meohaw were alarmed to see the falling suspicious looking object. 

The caretakers reported the incident to the police to check if the crashed aircraft is really a US spy plane.

The plane bore markings that read "Lockheed onga," probably a brand name from Mexico with address at Marion, MA 02738 USA.

Kidapawan City Police Director Renante Cabico said the aircraft is not too heavy but he suspects it as a weather data gathering instrument.

Many believe that the aircraft is a US spy plane used by the American soldiers participating in Balikatan exercises in Mindanao because of the device or transmitter found inside the plane.

Police investigation is still ongoing.

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Edgardo Fuerzas | SunStar.Com.Ph | May 8, 2012 | Article Link

Rebels attack convoy in Cotabato

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Xinhua) - Suspected leftist rebels detonated two improvised bombs along a road in a southern Philippine city early today, barely missing a passing convoy of military and civilian vehicles, a military official said.

No one was hurt following the 6:25 a.m. blasts at San Mateo village, Kidapawan city, in Mindanao's North Cotabato province, " but several civilian commuters have been traumatized," according to Colonel Leopoldo Galon, Eastern Mindanao Command spokesperson.

The loud explosions rocked the village as a military truck carrying soldiers of the army's 57th Infantry Battalion, a mini- jeepney and two motorcycles full of civilians were passing by, said Galon.

"Everyone escaped the blasts but the civilian commuters were terrified," the military official told Xinhua by text message, adding the incident happened near a populated area just several kilometers from the city proper.

Galon suspected New People's Army rebels could be behind the latest attack as it happened just days after a series of clashes between government troops and the leftist rebels in the province that left six people dead.

He said the provincial army commander Colonel Cesar Sedillo was readying the filing of criminal charges against the NPA for allegedly employing landmines, long banned by the Ottawa Treaty which both the Philippine government and the insurgents' political umbrella Communist Party of the Philippines were signatories.

The 4,000-strong NPA is fighting a leftist insurgency in 60 Philippine provinces since March 29, 1969.

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The Philippine Star | April 1, 2012 | Article Link

Slain Filipino-Swiss trader in North Cotabato laid to rest

COTABATO CITY, March 10 (PNA) - Relatives of a Filipino-Swiss businessman who was killed by communist guerillas in Kidapawan City on Wednesday have called for authorities to arrest and charged the perpetrators.


Patrick Winiger, the 47-year-old peace advocate based in Makilala, North Cotabato, was shot at close range by two New Peoples Army hitmen at the Kidapawan public market at 7:45 a.m. while doing marketing chores.


Although armed, Winiger, who has been actively supporting government campaign against atrocities committed by communist rebels, failed to fire back as two men were seen pumping bullets on him from behind.


One of the attackers even took Winiger's gun and used it to finish him off.


The NPA claimed responsibility for the attack and said they carried out the murder because of Winiger's alleged participation in the killing of Italian missionary priest Fr. Fausto Tentorio in Arakan, North Cotabato last October.


Winiger, who was abducted by kidnap-for-ransom gangs in 1970s, managed a banana plantation in Makilala, North Cotabato, which employed former NPAs who returned to the folds of the law.


The military and local government officials have separately condemned the atrocities perpetrated by NPAs in Makilala, including the used of landmine against government forces and civilians.


The slain businessman was very active in peace advocacy and help educate civilians that the government is for them and that fighting the mighty government is a useless cause.


He also got the ire of rebels for his repeated calls for communist combatants to live normal lives instead of living in hardship in the slope of the country's highest peak - Mt. Apo.
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Edwin O. Fernandez | Philippine News Agency | March 10,2012 | Article Link

Rebels kill rubber plantation manager

MANILA — Authorities say suspected communist rebels in the south have killed a rubber plantation manager who was also a military intelligence agent.

Kidapawan town police chief Renante Cabico says two men shot Patrick Winiger at close range Wednesday as he was buying vegetables in the local market. The gunmen took Winiger's pistol and wallet and fled on motorcycles with two other men who served as lookouts.

Cabico says the 47-year-old served as a military intelligence agent and was an anti-communist crusader who had organized local tribesmen to fight the rebel New People's Army.

Regional military spokesman Col. Leopoldo Galon says Winiger's plantation hires former rebels.

Cabico says Winiger is of Swiss descent and was born in the Philippines.

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AP | SunStar.Com.Ph | Wednesday, March 7, 2012 | Article Link

Troops continue to hunt down Kipawan jail raiders

COTABATO CITY - Government operatives recovered two dozens of new Army uniforms and combat boots in a house where raiders of the Kidapawan City jail slept before they carried out the botched attempt to spring their leader from the facility.


Kidapawan City Mayor Rodolfo Gantuangco, chairman of the city’s inter-agency peace and order council, said this is an indication that the plan to rescue detained bandit Datukan Samad from the jail was indeed carefully planned.


Policemen and soldiers found the military provisions, which include a first-aid kit, schematic sketches of the streets traversing the area where the city jail is located, and the gunmen’s possible escape routes, inside an abandoned house in a secluded area about 10 kilometers southeast of Kidapawan City.


More than a hundred combatants of the Philippine Army’s 602nd Brigade, and members of the North Cotabato provincial police are still been scouring the surroundings of Kidapawan City in search of some 50 gunmen that tried to rescue Samad.


Three people were killed and 16 others were injured in the attack when the gunmen set off improvised explosive devices, indiscriminate fired B-40 anti-tank rockets, and strafed buildings in the surroundings with assault rifles, when they failed to breach the guarded gate of the city jail.


Samad, also known as Commander Lastikman in his hometown Pikit in North Cotabato, is being litigated for multiple murders, highway robberies, kidnappings, drug-trafficking, and cattle-rustlings and theft of government-owned firearms.


An Army Simba combat vehicle and a platoon-size Army contingent are posted in the immediate surroundings of the jail to prevent a repeat of the bungled attempt to rescue Samad.


Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo awarded yesterday with merit citations 27 members of the fire and jail management bureaus and a civilian volunteer watchman for thwarting an attempt by some 50 gunmen to spring from jail bandit Datukan Samad from the Kidapawan City jail last Sunday.


The awarding rite, held in Kidapawan City, was witnessed by local officials led by Gantuangco.


Nineteen of the 27 awardees are firemen while the rest are security details from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and a civilian community watchman named Joemar Lizardo, who, all together, fused ranks when they repelled the heavily armed attackers, preventing them from even getting close to the front gate of the city jail.


Among those Robredo awarded with medals were the injured Lizardo, Chief Inspector Romeo Tactaquin, who is Kidapawan City’s fire marshal, and his subordinate-firemen, Jerry Anunciado and Jonathan Cornejo, all being treated of gunshot and shrapnel wounds at a hospital in Kidapawan City.


Samad is just one of 16 “high risk” inmates at the Kidapawan City jail local officials wanted transferred to any detention facility outside of North Cotabato even before Sunday’s bloody incident.
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By John Unson 
The Philippine Star
February 24, 2012 12:25 PM
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NCotabato execs urged to raise bounty vs jail attackers

KIDAPAWAN CITY - Local sectors today urged North Cotabato Gov. Lala Taliño Mendoza and the city mayor to raise a bounty for the gunmen behind Sunday night’s bloody attempt to rescue detained Moro guerilla Datucan Samad from the city jail.

Mendoza, head of the Inter-Agency Provincial Peace and Order Council, already asked North Cotabato’s provincial police office to immediately relieve city police director, Superintendent Chino Mamburam, for his failure to impose measures that could have effectively pre-empted the attack.

Three people were killed, one of them a responding Red Cross volunteer named Benny Balmediano, and 16 others were injured in Sunday night’s attempt by followers of Samad, armed with assault rifles and shoulder-fire B-40 anti-tank rockets, to spring him from the city jail.

Prior warnings

Samad, who is facing cases of multiple murders, highway robberies with homicides, cattle rustlings, extortion, and large-scale propagation of Marijuana plants, is also known as “Commander Lastikman” among his followers.

“We have learned that prior to the incident, the city police repeatedly received feedback from patriotic sources and concerned citizens warning of a plan to rescue this Lastikman and yet there was no decisive action taken to prevent it from happening,” Mendoza told reporters.

The Army already deployed dozens of non-uniformed operatives in strategic spots and surrounding towns to help the North Cotabato provincial police locate the whereabouts of the gunmen.

Major Gen, Rey Ardo, commander of Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said intelligence operatives from the 57th Infantry Battalion and the 602nd Brigade have also been tasked to help the Kidapawan City police determine the identities of the gunmen to hasten the filing of criminal charges against them.

The suspects have scampered to different directions after failing to breach the gates of the detention facility.

Most of the attackers were seen fleeing towards Barangay Nuwangan, carrying companions who were wounded when personnel of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and policemen engaged them in running firefights.

Ardo said their efforts to help the police is in close coordination with the office of Major Gen. Ariel Bernardo, chairman of the government’s Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, which deals with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, through his MILF counterpart, Said Sheik.

The spokesman of the MILF, Von Al-Haq, denied any involvement of their fighters in the Kidapawan City jail attack.

Al-Haq said Samad is not in the roster of MILF members either.

Well planned

Samad has been implicated in the murder of some 30 people in Pikit and surrounding towns.

He and his men have also been tagged in dozens of highway robberies, which happened in the past five years along the isolated stretches of the Cotabato-Davao Highway traversing the adjoining Pikit, Aleosan, Pagalungan and Montawal towns at the boundary of North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces.

Chief Inspector Elmer Guevarra of the North Cotabato provincial Criminal Investigation and Detection Team (CIDT) told reporters the attack was well coordinated and carefully planned.

The attackers even created diversions using improvised explosive devices fashioned from live 81 MM mortar projectiles with remote controlled blasting mechanisms.

Gueverra said the gunmen tried to surprise the guards of the city jail by blasting shoulder-fire rocket-propelled grenades on its front ground, but guards on duty engaged them in a firefight to prevent them from closing in.

The gunmen fled after sensing they could get inside the city jail, but opened fire at buildings and a videoke pub around the city jail and set off bombs as they escaped.

Some of the gunmen wore black Army Ranger combat uniforms and shiny boots.

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By John Unson 

The Philippine Star

February 21, 2012 12:38 PM

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