BIFF highway blockade meant to sabotage delivery of relief aid

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – The five-hour blockade by bandits of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) of isolated stretches of the Cotabato-General Santos Highway was meant to sabotage the delivery of about 10 tons of relief supplies to flood victims in the second district of the province, according to local government and security officials.

The relief supplies though were still delivered the same day by personnel of the governor’s office of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to flooded villages in Gen. S.K. Pendatun town and surrounding areas via the Cotabato City-North Cotabato route, which is longer by 83 kilometers.

Intelligence units of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division were convinced the BIFF pulled off simultaneous attacks along stretches of the highway before dawn on Tuesday after hearing media reports that ARMM officials were to transport relief supplies to the second district.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, 6th ID spokesman, said they had received information from villagers in the conflict-stricken Guindulungan, Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay towns that the bandits, in fact, had even planned to set off roadside bombs to derail the convoy carrying the relief supplies.

The convoy was to depart for Gen. S.K. Pendatun town via the Cotabato-General Santos Highway at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to regional officials.

More than 100,000 villagers in 19 of Maguindanao’s 36 towns have been dislocated by floods spawned by incessant rains since last weekend.

Last Monday, ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman led the initial distribution of relief supplies to evacuees in flooded Sultan Kudarat and Kabuntalan towns in the first district of Maguindanao.

Local officials said the BIFF has been sowing hatred against the government among villagers in areas where its forces operate and impose a Taliban-style justice system.

“Maybe they want the flood victims to get hungry in evacuation sites to make their instigations succeed,” said a local official, who asked not to be identified.

ARMM Vice Gov. Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman, concurrent regional social welfare secretary, said soldiers have put up checkpoints along highways to prevent the bandits from closing in.

“By passing through many checkpoints on my way back to Cotabato from Koronadal (in South Cotabato) I realized the danger ahead,” said Lucman, who led the relief mission in the second district of Maguindanao.

Hermoso said the 6th ID’s security missions against the BIFF would continue and even intensify with the approach of Eid’l Fitr, the culmination of the Ramadhan fasting season, either on Aug. 9 or Aug. 10, due to possible retaliatory attacks by the bandits.

 Meanwhile, the BIFF attacks have taken their toll on the education of Moro children, as local officials confirmed yesterday that 1,698 grade school and high school students were forced to stay home as the bandits and government forces clashed in Guindulungan town on Tuesday.

Seven schools in Datu Piang, also in the second district of Maguindanao, were forced to call off classes as the bandits harassed a roadside Army detachment, while another group fired at an oil tanker and a hauler truck on a secluded stretch of the Cotabato-General Santos Highway also in Guindulungan.

Classes in strife-torn barangays in Datu Saudi, Datu Unsay and Datu Piang were still suspended yesterday and education officials were reluctant to reopen the schools without any clearance from local authorities and the military.