Marines asked to secure village in Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  --- Hundreds of villagers displaced by the attack on Saturday by  armed supporters of defeated candidates of a barangay in Datu Blah Sinsuat, Maguindanao have asked the Philippine Marine Corps to put up a detachment in the area to prevent a repeat of the incident.

The gunmen fired at houses and beat an 18-year-old son of a village leader, Norodin Solaiman, who campaigned for re-elected Datu Blah Sinsuat Mayor Marcial Sinsuat.

Sinsuat won a second term during the May 13 polls, defeating a cousin, Datu Manawut, who hails from Barangay Resa in the same coastal municipality.

The displaced villagers are considering to draft a manifesto urging the Marines to immediately install a security detachment in the area to deter more attacks by the same group.

The evacuees are now  staying at a school building and houses of relatives in Lower Tambak, which are accessible to the police and combatants of the 1st Marine Battalion Landing Team.

Police investigators are also looking into reports by evacuees that three sons of their former barangay chairwoman, whose family supported opposition candidates during the May 13 local polls, provided “guides” that led the gunmen to the houses they sprayed with bullets

The suspects also arbitrarily held a villager they used as guide in their escape towards a nearby hinterland after the shooting frenzy.

Sinsuat said villagers have urged him to convince the First Marine Brigade, based in Kalamansig town in Sultan Kudarat, and its component battalion, the Marine Battalion Landing Team 1, to immediately put up a detachment in Barangay Tambak.

Sinsuat said he will convene this week the inter-agency, multi-sectoral municipal peace and order council to discuss solutions to the security problems  in Barangay Tambak. - John Unson