BIFF bandits retreat, free Midsayap hostages

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines – Retreating members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) released early yesterday morning nine hostages after the gunmen beheaded a farmer and executed another hostage.

The hostages had been snatched and used as human shields when the suspects attacked five villages in Midsayap town last Monday.

The nine hostages, all public school teachers, were abandoned by their captors near a boat dock along a river at the boundary of barangays Malingao and Sambulawan in Midsayap.

The latest clashes resulted in the death of three Army soldiers, four rebels, and two civilians, including the beheaded farmer.

The BIFF is a splinter group of the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, now the dominant Muslim rebel group engaged in peace talks with the government for a new autonomy deal for minority Muslims in Mindanao.

The BIFF members used a machete and beheaded 31-year-old Ricarte Dionio last Monday.

Villagers recovered Dionio’s body in a rice field in barangay Malingao, where bandits were holed out for more than 10 hours as they held the nine public school teachers hostage.

Local officials said Dionio was one of the more than 20 residents the bandits prevented from leaving as they engaged responding soldiers, after laying siege on villages.

Another group of bandits also executed “gangland style” a villager identified as Erwin Vinluan, 22, who allegedly refused to carry one of the wounded suspects.

Some of the freed hostages said the rebels ordered Vinluan to kneel with his hands behind his head and shot him at point-blank range in the head with an M-16 rifle.

“The relatives of the victims are grieving, yearning for justice,” said Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.

Hermoso also confirmed that three soldiers, not four as he had announced late Monday, were killed in encounters with BIFF bandits in barangays Pulumugen and Malingao.

Hermoso identified the slain soldiers as privates first class Robert Baling, 26; Reynon James Bellares, 23; and Adonis Alejo, 29.

Midsayap Mayor Romeo Araña, chairman of the municipal peace and order council, said the nine teachers were among dozens seized by the rebels.

The teachers were among more than 20 other people that were earlier held hostage by the bandits.

Fifteen of them were released Monday afternoon through the efforts of Araña, North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Talio-Mendoza, and provincial board member Kelly Antao.

Combatants of the 40th Infantry Battalion found the nine teachers wandering in the dark, disoriented and crying for help.

Hermoso said the victims were immediately turned over to Mendoza and Araña, who rushed them to hospital for immediate medical examination. With Edith Regalado, Jaime Laude, AP