Moro leaders asked to help defuse tension in North Cotabato town

NORTH COTABATO – Provincial officials enlisted on Thursday the help of traditional leaders in defusing tension in a barangay in Kabacan town where rival Moro forces again clashed early this week, displacing some 50 peasant families.

The rival groups, one led by Nayang Timan of the 108th Base Command of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the other led by incumbent barangay officials residing in the area, are locked in territorial and political disputes.

Most of the residents in the troubled Barangay Pedtad in Kabacan are either members or supporters of the MILF too.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza and the local government unit of Kabacan are initiating peaceful means of resolving the security problems besetting the barangay.

The governor on Thursday urged local clerics and traditional Moro leaders to help resolve the conflict.

“The provincial government, along with the 602nd Brigade, is in control of the situation there,” Hermoso said.

The latest hostilities in the area erupted early this week when Timan and his followers shot with assault rifles and shoulder-fire grenades the houses of Moro villagers in a farming enclave in west of Barangay Pedtad.

Timan and his followers escaped after responding community watchmen and armed Moro villagers returned fire.

Barangay folks said their community leaders have become enemies of Timan for preventing his group from intruding into their villages to forcibly collect “zakat” (alms) from poor peasants.

“That is an isolated pocket conflict involving local groups,” Hermoso said.

The latest hostilities in Barangay Pedtad forced villagers to temporarily relocate to safer areas.

The Kabacan LGU and the office of Mendoza are now attending to the needs of evacuees, according to Hermoso.