COTABATO CITY ,Philippines – Armed men wearing ski masks attacked a tribal enclave in Antipas, North Cotabato past 10 a.m. yesterday, killing a 10-year-old child as they fired at shanties before warning the tribal folk of more attacks if they would not relocate and abandon their ancestral land.
The attack came just as a special team of agents from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the National Bureau of Investigation arrived in nearby Arakan town for another round of an extensive case evaluation meant to hasten the resolution of the Oct. 17 murder of environmentalist Italian missionary Fausto Tentorio near his convent in the town proper.
Tentorio was popular for his strong advocacy for the protection of the ancestral lands of the Manobos, Bagobos and Bilaans in the adjoining towns of Antipas, Arakan and Magpet from intrusion by outsiders out to exploit the forests and mineral deposits.
The North Cotabato police and the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion have dispatched operatives to run after the armed men who attacked Malatab, a hinterland barangay in Antipas.
The slain child, according to the Antipas police, belonged to a tribal community inside a 2,000-hectare communal land of tribal folk covered by a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim.
Marcelo Limpad, senior timuay (chieftain) of Manobos in Barangay Malatab, said an armed group has been harassing farmers and threatening to attack if the tribal folk would not vacate their farms.
“The group is comprised of outsiders; they are not natives,” Limpad told reporters in the Visayan dialect with heavy Manobo accent.
Limpad, citing security reasons, declined to identify the group.
He said dozens of Manobo farmers, fearing for their safety, have also evacuated deeper into the jungles at the boundary of North Cotabato and Bukidnon.
Tentorio, who belonged to the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Mission congregation, campaigned among tribal communities to oppose any encroachment by settlers and capitalists into their enclaves to venture into agricultural and industrial projects that could only cause their dislocation.
Parishioners in Arakan, where Tentorio was popularly known as Fr. Pops, are convinced it was his advocacies that cost him his life.