9 Moro rebels killed in series of clashes - Army

At least nine Moro guerillas were killed in a series of clashes with government forces in the borders of North Cotabato and Maguindanao since December 31, the Army here reported Friday.

Capt. Antonio Bulao, spokesperson of the 602nd Infantry Brigade, said the latest fatalities were two Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, who were killed on January 1 during a rebel attack on a paramilitary outpost in Barangay Nabalawag in Pikit, North Cotabato.

“Our forces retaliated from sniper shots fired from the BIFF side, killing two of the attackers,” Bulao said.

A soldier was wounded in the 20-minute firefight that ensued, he added.

On Thursday, seven rebels were also killed during a clash with soldiers in Barangay Paidu Pulangi, also in Pikit, according to Bulao.

“They keep on harassing our forces,” Bulao said of the recent activities involving the breakaway Moro Islamic Liberation Front faction.

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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

5 soldiers hurt in clash with NPA rebels

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – Five soldiers were wounded in two days of hostilities which started Monday between government forces and communist rebels in North Cotabato’s restive Makilala town.

The latest encounter between New People’s Army guerrillas and soldiers, which erupted early Tuesday in Barangay New Israel, Makilala left two soldiers, initially identified only as Cpls. Pantasan and Soria, badly wounded.

The wounded soldiers, who both belong to the 6th ID’s elite 62nd Division Reconnaissance Company, and several companions were on their way to a hinterland area in Barangay New Israel on board an Army truck when NPAs, positioned at one side of the road, shot them with assault rifles.

The companions of Pantasan and Soria managed to jump out of their vehicle and engage their attackers, preventing the rebels from closing in on the soldiers. 
   
The attackers scampered away after sensing that responding soldiers from a nearby Army base, backed by militiamen, have started arriving at the scene.

Inspector Rizal Alolod, the acting Makilala municipal police chief, said the soldiers the NPAs ambushed were on their way to check on complaints of farmers on the extortion by rebels of “revolutionary tax” in Barangay New Israel.

NPA rebels have been frequenting the secluded barangay, where they force farmers to give them money and food at gunpoint.

The latest NPA attack in Barangay New Israel came less than 24 hours after rebels opened fire on another group of soldiers searching for landmines and roadside bombs in an open field in another area not far from the scene of the ambush.

They wounded soldiers, Cpls. Antonio Grafil Jr., Allan Lauria, and Jonathan Santos, who are now undergoing medication at the Makilala Medical Specialist Center at the town proper of Makilala.

Local officials said the NPAs in North Cotabato’s adjoining Magpet, Makilala, Arakan and Antipas towns have been counter-attacking combatants of the 6th ID and its component-unit, the 602nd Brigade, for having liberated more than 20 guerilla enclaves in the four towns the past five months.

Col. Ademar Tomaro, commander of the 602nd Brigade, said NPAs in North Cotabato have also been trying to return to their former camps, which they intend to use as “springboards” for their extortion activities that would target politicians that would campaign  in far-flung areas. 
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John Unson | The Philippine Star | February 12, 2013 | Article Link 

Three dead, 33 wounded in Philippine bombing

Three people were killed and 33 others wounded after a man hurled a grenade into a cockfighting arena in the southern Philippines on Saturday, a police official said.

More than a hundred people had gathered at the makeshift cockpit in the small rural town of Aleosan when a fragmentation grenade went off, said provincial police chief Superintendent Conrado Salinas.

Survivors saw the man who threw the grenade and recognised him as a local resident, Salinas said, adding that he is now being hunted by police.

"We suspect that the man lost (money) in previous cockfights and he wanted to get even," the police chief added.

Cockfights are a popular past-time in the Philippines, attracting scores of gamblers who bet on the fights between the birds.

The southern Philippines has long been troubled by the widespread availability of weapons such as grenades due to decades of fighting involving soldiers, communist rebels, Muslim separatists and other armed groups.

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AFP News/Yahoo News Online | April 14, 2012 | Article Link

2 dead, 5 wounded in North Cotabato bus blast - military

DAVAO CITY, Philippines -- (UPDATE 4 - 2:15 p.m.) Two persons were killed and at least five wounded when a bomb exploded on a passenger bus in North Cotabato Wednesday morning, the military said, drastically scaling down its original casualty count.

Lieutenant Colonel Benjie Hao told reporters the death toll was confirmed after soldiers reached the scene of the blast.

Colonel Leopoldo Galon, spokesman of the Eastern Mindanao Command, had initially announced 10 fatalities and two wounded.

Galon said the Rural Area Transit bus with the body number 2922 had just reached the terminal in Carmen town around 10:25 a.m. when the improvised explosive device planted in the vehicle’s baggage compartment went off.

All the casualties were passengers on the bus, which was traveling from Tacurong City to Cagayan de Oro.

The Eastmincom identified the fatalities as Analyn Sioco, 33, of Malanduage in Kabacan, and Rona Mae Causing, 18, of Bukidnon.

Four of the wounded were identified as Denia Causin of Bukidnon, Alan Hampiso, 36, of Magpet, his six-year old son, Janel Cosca, 11, from Bukidnon. They were rushed to the Kabacan Medical Specialist hospital.

The Rural Area Transit has been attacked in the past in which authorities believe to be extortion attempts by criminal syndicates.

On October 21, 2010, a powerful bomb ripped through a bus of the firm, which was en route to Tacurong City, killing 10 people and wounding several others.

On March 13 this year, a bomb also exploded in a bus at the public terminal in Tacurong City, wounding one.

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Jefry M. Tupas/Abigail Kwok | InterAksyon.com/TV5 Davao | April 11, 2012 | Article Link

Soldier killed in clash with NPA in N. Cotabato

MANILA, Philippines — An Army private was killed in a firefight between government troops and New People’s Army rebels in Magpet town, North Cotabato, the military said Friday.

Colonel Leopoldo Galon of the Eastern Mindanao Command said the identity of the slain soldier was withheld until his kin were notified.

Troops from the Alpha Company of the  57th Infantry Battalion were conducting security patrol at Bagumbayan village when they encountered an undetermined number of rebels led by a certain Totoy Dako  at 11:45 a.m. Thursday.

The rebels fled with their casualties after the encounter which lasted for over an hour, he said.

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Frances Mangosing | INQUIRER.net | March 30, 2012 | Article Link

Army, rebels clash in Cotabato town

KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Government troops under the Army's 602nd Brigade encountered some 50 fully armed communist rebels in the hinterlands of Tulunan, North Cotabato, over the weekend, reports from the military said.

The exchange of fires between elements of the 68th Infantry Battalion and the rebels under the 72nd Front Committee of the New People’s Army (NPA) started around 2:45 p.m. Saturday in Barangay Batang in Tulunan.

The firefight lasted for less than an hour, according to 1 Lieutenant Kenny Ramona, commanding officer of the Bravo Company of the 68th Infantry Battalion (IB).

None among the soldiers was hurt, but the rebels, according to Ramona, suffered undetermined number of casualties as evidenced by bloodstains in the site.

No reported displacement of villagers in the area since the encounter site is far from the populated areas, Ramona said.

He hinted the rebels they encountered over the weekend were under same group that led the attacks in nearby Makilala town and in Kidapawan City.

On Monday, elements of the 40th IB and the 57th IB of the 602nd Brigade engaged in an intense armed fighting with the rebels in the hinterlands of Makilala town.

The Army suffered two fatalities and another soldier injured, according to reports from the 57th IB.

The military has no data as to the casualty on the rebel side.

On Wednesday, the NPAs shot dead in a busy commercial district in Kidapawan City a Swiss-Filipino national who has long worked with the military in North Cotabato in its peace-building activities.

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Malu Cadeliña Manar | SunStar.Com.Ph | Monday, March 12, 2012 | Article Link

3 leftist rebels killed in clash in Cotabato

COTABATO, Philippines (Xinhua) - Soldiers have killed at least three leftist rebels and wounded seven others during a clash in the country's restive south, an army official said today.

The soldiers under the 68th Infantry Battalion were patrolling yesterday afternoon when they encountered some 50 New Peoples Army rebels in Batang village, North Cotabato province, said Prudencio Asto, public affairs chief of the army's 6th Division.

A three-hour firefight ensued, leaving three guerrillas dead and seven others wounded, according to Asto.

"Hundreds of families have fled for fear of their safety. The rebels only withdrew when we used howitzers," Asto said, adding there were no reported casualties on the government side.

The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been waging a guerrilla campaign in the countryside for four decades. Military estimates the NPA strength at more than 4,000 men scattered in more than 60 guerrilla fronts throughout the country.

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The Philippine Star | March 11,2012 | Article Link

PNP, Army put up check points following grenade attacks in North Cotabato town

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao, March 10 (PNA) - Police and military authorities have put up road blocks and choke points along major thoroughfares in Pikit, North Cotabato following the series of bomb and grenade attacks.


While no one was hurt in the latest incident that happened on February 9, Senior Insp. Elias Dandan, Pikit police chief, said more police are visibly deployed along residential areas and public places like markets and town centers.


Unidentified men tossed a hand grenade in front of a Mosque in Barangay POblacion at about 11:30 p.m. The blast caused fear among the residents nearby.


In February, a fragmentation grenade was also lobbed at the town's commercial establishments in what police believed was carried out by extortion groups.


The owner of the establishment had confirmed having received, but ignored a letter from the Al-Khobar extortion gang demanding monthly “protection money” prior to the bombing.


Dandan said investigators and Army intelligence operatives operating in Pikit are certain the latest grenade attack at the market and at the Mosque were the handiwork of the same extortion gang.


Composed of former Moro rebels, the Al-Khobar has claimed responsibility for the spate of deadly bombings of buses, commercial establishments and public terminals in North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat in recent months.


The town police chief said one of two men riding a motorcycle in tandem hurled the grenade near the mosque and sped away.


Colonel Benjamen Hao, 7th Infantry Battalion commander based in Pikit, has augmented the undermanned town police force by establishing several choke points along portions of the highway linking Cotabato and Davao.


Common along the highway, especially during early evening rush hours, are robberies, hold-up, strafing of passenger vehicles, shooting and bombings.


Dandan said the local government is considering an imposition of curfew hours to prevent lawless elements from carrying their ill motives against innocent civilians.


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RSV/NYP/EOF | Philippine News Agency | March 10,2012 | Article Link 

Rebels abduct Manobo tribesman in North Cotabato

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Communist rebels are holding captive a Manobo tribesman, who survived a landmine blast that left his brother and two soldiers dead three days ago in Makilala, North Cotabato.

The captive, Postelo Egkil, and his slain sibling, Jumer, were aiding members the Army's 40th and 57th Infantry Battalions (IB) locate encampments of the New People's Army in Barangay Buhay, when a soldier stepped on a landmine, triggering a powerful blast.

Two soldiers identified as Pfc. Celestino Alejandro and Pfc. Ismirol Musa, members of the 40th IB, died from the blast.

Army officials said Egkil could have been disoriented by the explosion and strayed deep into a nearby forest crawling with NPA fighters.

Manobo settlers in Barangay Buhay, located at the foot of Mt. Apo, have been helping the military track down NPA rebels in the area, apparently incensed by the rebels' excessive taxation activities.

Lt. Col. Noel Dela Cruz, The commanding officer of the 57th IB, said the rebels blasted 10 powerful roadside bombs Monday morning, as if trying to scare civilians for them no to cooperate with the military.

The bombing frenzy came at the heels of last week's bloody encounter between the Army and the rebels in Barangay Buhay, which left five soldiers wounded.

Local officials and key members of Makilala's municipal peace and order council have confirmed that four NPA rebels were killed while five others, mostly adolescents, were wounded in the ensuing firefights, which forced dozens of families to evacuate to safer areas.

The rebels were led by two notorious commanders, Budong and Enoy, both wanted for heinous offenses, including arson, armed robberies and multiple murders.

Makilala's municipal social welfare officer, Lina Canedo, said many of the evacuees are now housed in makeshift evacuation sites.

"Some of them are in the houses of their relatives in nearby barangays," she said.

Local officials are now trying to secure the release of the Manobo tribesman being held captive by the rebels.

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John Unson | The Philippine Star | March 07, 2012 | Article Link

Landmine kills 2 soldiers, farmer

MANILA -- The Philippine military said a landmine believed to have been planted by communist guerrillas has killed two soldiers and a farmer in the country's south.

Army Colonel Leopoldo Galon said a platoon of soldiers was patrolling a trail Monday in the mountainous outskirts of Makilala town in North Cotabato province when the landmine exploded.

Galon said the farmer had been walking with the troops. His body was thrown off a ravine by the blast and was later recovered.

Communist New People's Army guerrillas were believed to be responsible. More than 120,000 combatants and civilians have been killed in the 43-year Marxist insurgency, one of Asia's longest.

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AP | Monday, March 5, 2012 | SunStar.Com.Ph | Article Link

5 soldiers hurt in N. Cotabato clash with NPA rebs

Five soldiers were injured Sunday morning in an encounter with some 50 fully-armed communist rebels in a remote village in Makilala town in the southern Philippine province of North Cotabato.
 
Reports reaching the Makilala Police said troops from the 57th Infantry Battalion were patrolling the hinterlands of Barangay Batasan, a known lair of New Peoples’ Army rebels, when they chanced upon the insurgents, triggering a firefight that lasted for 40 minutes.
 
The rebels withdrew to the upper portion of Barangay Buenavida after troops from the 68th Infantry Battalion reinforced the patrolling soldiers, reports said.
 
At least 51 families from two villages in Makilala evacuated to safer areas for fear that the fighting might continue and they would be caught in the crossfire.

Of that number, 40 families were from Purok-6, Barangay Batasan, and 11 from Sitio Apoy-Apoy, Barangay Buenavida.
 
The local government unit of Makilala has already sent food items to the evacuees.
 
Names of the injured soldiers were not yet available as of posting time.
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Malu Cadelina Manar/KBK | GMA News | March 4, 2012 4:50pm | Article Link

3 dead, 12 injured in Kidapawan jail attack

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines – Three persons were killed while 12 others were injured following an attack on the city jail here around 10 p.m. Sunday, February 19.

This after more or less 50 heavily unidentified armed men fired a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) to the wall of the city jail in an attempt to rescue Datukan Samad alias Lastikman.

The attack began with the rebels firing B-40 anti-tank rockets at the entrance of the city jail.  Personnel of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology  (BJMP) who were  on duty returned fire, forcing the attackers to retreat.

Jail Officer 2 Joel Litada and 15 others were wounded in the ensuing shootout. They are now confined at different hospitals here.

The fatalities were identified as Benny Balmediano, Ian Carlos Sevilla and Mark Anthony Morales.

Senior Supt. Chino Mamburam, director of the Kidapawan City police, said the slain Sevilla and Morales were drinking inside Molos Videoke House, about a block away from the city jail.

Another group shot the victims with assault rifles to create a diversion.

Just after the attackers and the BJMP personnel traded shots, another armed group blasted a powerful improvised explosive device at the entrance to the BFP’s headquarters behind the city jail, wounding three firemen, among them Chief Inspector Romeo Tactaquin.

Notorious “Lastikman”

Mamburan said the attackers, some of them overheard by witnesses as conversing with each other in ethnic Maguindanaon dialect, were to rescue Samad.

Samad was implicated in the killings of more than 30 people in Pikit, North Cotabato in recent years.

Samad and his followers were suspects of the more than 50 highway robberies in stretches of the Cotabato-Davao Highway.

Military intelligence sources said the group that attempted to rescue Samad was comprised of rogue rebels from Pikit and nearby Pagalungan and Montawal towns, both in Maguindanao.

“Some of them were the same men that twice attacked the (North Cotabato) provincial jail several years ago,” a senior Army intelligence officer told reporters.

Arrested in Cotabato City

Samad was arrested in Cotabato City about two months ago for carrying guns and grenades while he and his companions Guiamelon Pangako and Eliseo Lamayo were to leave for Pikit on board a motorcycle.

The Cotabato City police committed Samad to a North Cotabato court that issued one of more than two dozens of warrants for his arrest.

The North Cotabato provincial police and the court worked out Samad’s detention at the city jail here in anticipation of his possible rescue by his followers, having seen two attacks by Moro rebels at the North Cotabato provincial jail in the secluded Barangay Amas here, which resulted to the escape of dozens of inmates.

Among those that escaped in one of the incidents was Datu Ali Sultan, a guerilla bomb-maker, who was said to have trained in Kandahar, Afganistan in the late 1980s. 

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By John Unson 

The Philippine Star

February 20, 2012 11:33 AM

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Report: Explosive device found near school in north Cotabato

An improvised explosive device (IED) was found near a school in Midsayap town in North Cotabato province Thursday night.

The IED was recovered around 10:45 p.m. across the Midsayap Central Elementary School, according to a report Friday on Radyo Mo Nationwide (RMN).

RMN quoted Midsayap deputy police head Inspector Enilo Galilea as saying the IED was also positioned near the municipal plaza.

Police suspect the motive for putting the IED there was more to instill fear among residents, the RMN report added.

An initial investigation showed the IED was made from a 60-mm mortar and was wired to a nine-volt battery, with a cellular phone as the triggering device.

The RMN report said an Explosives and Ordnance team conducted a controlled detonation of the device.
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LBG, GMA News
GMA News Online
February 3, 2012 2:42pm
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Blast rocks Cotabato market; extortion eyed

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - A blast from an improvised explosive device (IED) hit Pikit, North Cotabato Sunday evening.

Pikit cops said the explosion occurred in front of the store owned by a certain Cecilia Filipinas, which was located in front of the town’s public market.

No one was injured in the incident.

Bomb experts said based on the fragments recovered at the blast site, the IED was fashioned out of a 60-millimeter mortar, with a cellphone as its triggering device.

Police suspect extortion was the motive behind the explosion. Filipinas said she had been receiving extortion letters before the incident.

An investigation is now ongoing to determine the group behind the blast.

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by Lerio Bompat, 

ABS-CBN News Central Mindanao

Posted at 01/30/2012 1:31 PM

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2 North Cotabato villages get PAMANA benefits

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Two North Cotabato barangays, looted and burned down in 2008 by jihadist Ameril Ombra Kato and his men, are the latest additions to the beneficiaries of the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PAMANA) program.

PAMANA is a project of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos Deles, focused on the reconstruction of conflict-devastated communities in areas covered by the ceasefire accord between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front.

The two barangays, Nangaan and Pedtad, both in Kabacan town, an agricultural town in the first district of North Cotabato, are home to hundreds of Muslim and Christian families that rely mainly on farming as means of livelihood.

Buenaventura Pacania, a senior staffer of Kabacan’s municipal planning and development office, said the PAMANA project aimed to construct core shelters for villagers displaced by conflicts in 2008.

Renegade members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, many of them already dropped from the MILF’s roster of guerillas for abuse and indiscretion, repeatedly attacked Barangays Nangaan and Pedtad after the aborted crafting of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain in August 2008.

Some 200 houses in the two barangays were set on fire by Kato and his men, who now comprise the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement.

The group also attacked and razed more than 30 barangays at the marshy border of North Cotabato and Maguindanao to dramatize their indignation over botched signing of the MOA-AD.

“Hundreds of Moro and Christian families were affected by the brutal attacks by rampaging rebels then,” Pacania said.

PAMANA communities in Central Mindanao are also now being provided with extensive health, social welfare services and interventions by experts from the Department of Agriculture to maximize the productivity of local farmers.

 “We ought to thank President Aquino for this project which is being implemented through OPAPP,” said North Cotabato’s governor, Lala Taliño-Mendoza.

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By John Unson 

PhilStar.Com

January 28, 2012 01:00 PM

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