MAGUINDANAO – Tensions
rise between the two MILF groups after the last week’s murder of a MILF member
named Usman Pandapatan. Capt. Alvin Macatangay, spokesman of the Philippine
Army’s 603rd Brigade said that the military is struggling to contain a possible
rise of hostilities between two groups of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) in Pagalungan, Maguindanao.
Capt. Alvin Macatangay,
has jurisdiction over Pagalungan and nearby towns in North Cotabato, where the
conflicts of the two groups occur.
Pandapatan, who is among
the MILF’s 108th Base Command, was said shot dead by members of a conflicting
groups in Barangay Damalasak, a private district in Pagalungan. The rivalry
between MILF groups has triggered the interior farming area of Pagalungan and
repeated disturbed by violent encounters that caused by both political and land
disputes.
Speculations spread
among local people saying that
Pandapatan was murdered by a group led by a certain Kagi Dagiman, who is also a
member of the MILF.
With the help of the
joint Coordinating Committee, which is
comprised of three representatives, including MILF, military and police,
Macatangay believed that the two groups can only be calmed by the MILF governance.
Macatangay also said
that local officials and traditional Moro leaders in Maguindanao have also been
trying to calm the two groups.
