Tension anew between MNLF, MILF in Matalam

KORONADAL CITY, Philippines  – Tension spread anew in the restive Matalam  in North Cotabato  after a local group of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) on Thursday tagged the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as behind Sunday’s attack on a multi-million sugar mill in the area.

Datu Dima Ambil, chairman of the MNLF’s North Cotabato State Revolutionary Committee, said a group of members of the MILF’s 108th Base Command as responsible for the attack.

The rebels, believed to have come from Barangay Marbel in Matalam, came close to a village where Ambil and his men reside and shot houses with assault rifles.

Villagers said the gunmen also fired at positions of MNLF members securing the periphery of the milling plant of the Cotabato Sugar Central Corp. in Barangay Kilada, also in Matalam.

Ambil’s group  figured in running gunbattles in Barangay Marbel last month, causing the dislocation of 5,234 villagers.

The provincial government of North Cotabato brokered a  peace pact between the feuding MNLF and MILF groups, but combatants from both sides continued firing  shots at each other, preventing the return of evacuees to the barangay.