Tiruray leaders decry soldiers’ intrusion into their ancestral land

UPI, Maguindanao — Local Tiruray tribal leaders have urged Malacañang to investigate the military’s on-going operations against the Abu Sayyaf in their ancestral land, reportedly being carried out with the help of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), whose members are allegedly engaged in logging operations.

The Tirurays said that not a single Abu Sayyaf gunman has been found or captured by soldiers even as they have been scouring the coastal barangays here for two weeks now.

The military said soldiers have to be deployed in strategic spots along the 40-kilometer shoreline following an attempt by a band of 70 seafaring Abu Sayyaf gunmen, led by Khadafy Janjalani, to land in Barangay Laguitan here last month.

Barangay officials in Laguitan, however, said the trouble in one of the coastal villages in the area was only between two feuding Muslim clans, one of them identified with influential MNLF leaders engaged in logging activities and the other known for its links with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Members of the two factions have long been squabbling for control over a strategic area, which loggers use as log pond for timbers cut from nearby hinterlands.

Respected leaders of a Tausog community in Barangay Linao, about three villages away from Laguitan, said it would be "unlikely" for Abu Sayyaf members from either Sulu or the Zamboanga peninsula to land in Laguitan, which is a predominantly Maguindanaon community.

One of the sources, who asked not to be identified, said it would also be impossible for Janjalani and his men to hide deep into forest lands above their fishing villages, where they are total strangers and are unfamiliar with the dialects the local residents speak.

From Laguitan, the soldiers and MNLF forces proceeded to "hunt for Abu Sayyaf gunmen" at Mt. Fakal, a supposedly protected watershed area here and home to rare plant and animal species, including the legendary Philippine eagle.

Speaking over Catholic radio station dxMS in Cotabato City yesterday, a Tiruray chieftain, Timuay Alim, said they have apprehensions on the real motive of the soldiers and the MNLF guides in intruding into their forested ancestral lands.

"There is no Abu Sayyaf there. The trouble in the coastal areas started only as a family feud between two Muslim families. Now it has become an anti-Abu Sayyaf operation, spreading to areas which loggers have long been targeting for subsequent expansion of their operations," Alim told dxMS.