Authorities hunt down MNLF rebels for deaths of Cotabato folk

COTABATO CITY , Philippines  – The police and military are in pursuit of some 10 members of the Moro National Liberation Front that killed four villagers as they plundered a village in Matalam, North Cotabato last week.

The North Cotabato provincial police said the group, led by Commander Sammy Lulos, attacked on April 8 a farming village in Barangay New Abra, a secluded area in Mlang, scared local residents with their firearms and, subsequently, shot dead one after another four civilians for still unknown reason.

Lulos and his men reportedly belong to a faction in the MNLF which is led by Nur Misuari.

Witnesses said Lulos and his followers also burned several houses after killing Romulo Hernandez, 50, and his sons Dennis, 26, and Ryan, 14, and a certain Johnrel Untal, a farmer.

Relatives of the slain villagers have already filed criminal charges against Lulos and his men.

Fred Edillor, secretary-general of the MNLF’s Sebangan Kutawato State Committee, said Lulos is indeed a member of the front and is listed in their roster of commanders.

The incident came about a week after the reported takeover by certain MNLF members of parcels of land in an experimental farm in Kidapawan City of the Department of Agriculture.

Local officials said the intruders are claiming the farm, which the department has been using for agricultural experiments for more than four decades now, as part of their so-called “ancestral lands,” which, they assert, belong to their Moro ancestors.