For over a week now, talks have been rife that the once impregnable Buliok complex, the MILF’s former 3,000-hectare enclave at the boundary of Pikit, North Cotabato and Pagalungan, Maguindanao, which is now a "peace zone," would soon be vacated by government forces to allow its return to the MILF.
The military overran the MILF camp in February last year.
Buliok’s return to MILF control is supposedly part of the government’s package to prod the MILF central committee to agree to next week’s holding of the formal peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Key members of the government and MILF peace panels have confirmed the resumption of formal peace discussions in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 16-17.
North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol, known for his hardline policy in dealing with secessionist forces in his province, said allowing the MILF to regain control of the Buliok complex would not only "demoralize" political leaders in the region, but would also imperil ongoing rehabilitation projects there.
"The Buliok complex issue is non-negotiable for us, political leaders who are risking our lives just to promote tranquility and eradicate lawlessness in this part of the country," he said.
Kidnap-for-ransom and extortion gangs, car thieves and other lawless elements have sought refuge in the surroundings of the Buliok complex, which is traversed by wide rivers that provide escape routes to them.
The complex is also a gateway to the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Marsh.
"It (Buliok’s return) is like opening again the gates of this impoverished land to criminals and lawless elements that once used the area as their special rendezvous," Piñol said.
The MILF has denied coddling criminal elements in the area, accusing the police and the military of using this as an excuse to strike on rebel forces holding out there.
The Buliok complex hogged the headlines in 1997 when the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, then under Maj. Gen. Raul Urgello, drove away kidnappers from surrounding villages and found dozens of stolen motorcycles in their lairs.
It was also in the Liguasan Marsh, not far away from the Buliok complex, where the notorious Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom syndicate held captive in 2001 five Chinese nationals involved in the foreign-funded Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project in North Cotabato.
The 6th ID, under Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga, gained control of the Buliok complex on Feb. 14 last year after two weeks of air, artillery and ground offensives.
Senga was the first key military officer to set foot on the Buliok complex, the MILF’s remaining bastion then after soldiers overran Camp Abubakar at the Maguindanao-Lanao del Sur boundary on July 9, 2000.
Since April last year, the Army’s 54th Engineering Brigade, the 2nd Marine Brigade and the 6th ID’s Sallam (Peace) Unit have been implementing various rehabilitation projects, including low-cost houses for families of MILF rebels, in villages near the Buliok complex.
Most members of Maguindanao’s peace and order council, chaired by Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan, also oppose not only the return to MILF control of the Buliok complex but also all other former guerrilla enclaves in Central Mindanao which are now "peace zones."
Ampatuan is himself at odds with the MILF, having lost on Dec. 23, 2002 his son, Datu Saudi, then the mayor of Datu Piang town, in a powerful explosion allegedly perpetrated by the MILF’s Taoti Kawan-Kawan, alias Commander Rambo.
It was during Gov. Ampatuan’s term, which began in 2001, when the provincial government joined government efforts to neutralize known MILF camps in the second district of Maguindanao where villagers had long endured the separatist rebels’ excessive taxation.