Myth still surrounds grave of late anti-Moro commander

NORTH COTABATO — Caretakers of a local cemetery are guarding for 35 years now a tomb of a mythical anti-Moro cult leader whose skeletal remains some people believe can be made into powerful amulets.

Feliciano Luces, known in central Mindanao as the "Commander Toothpick" of the 1970s, was buried at the municipal cemetery of Mlang, North Cotabato.

He was a legendary leader of dozens of groups in the Ilaga, meaning rat, a Christian militia President Ferdinand Marcos armed and pitted against Moro insurgents in the 1970s.

Luces, who was of pure Ilonggo descent, was feared for his brutality on ethnic Maguindanaon Muslims locked in land ownership disputes with Christians.

Old folk in the adjoining North and South Upi towns in Maguindanao said he was feared for his alleged invincibility to enemies.

"Ang kuwento na naririnig namin noong mga bata pa kami ay nagsasaad na hindi daw tinatablan ng bala si Toothpick at hindi nakikita nang mga kalaban pag naglalakad sa kabukiran," said the 64-year-old Moh Dandi Demsen, an ethnic Teduray farmer.

Luces, whose group worked for the now defunct Philippine Constabulary, got away with all criminal liabilities he was supposedly answerable for owing to his connections with the Marcos-era military.

He repeatedly survived attempts by the police in North Upi to neutralize him in 1972 as complaints on his abuses against Moro people mounted.

Retired policemen in the municipality said there was a time they crawled near his house and shot him with .30 caliber Browning Automatic Rifles and an M-16 rifle, then still so rare, while in the porch of a house in a hinterland barangay, but missed.

"Maybe he was just lucky. Just the same, the municipal policemen then thought he indeed could be invincible like what his followers believe," said a former member of the North Upi police.

Hernand Dapudong, administrator of the Mlang municipal public cemetery, told reporters on Tuesday that there have been attempts by robbers to destroy the concrete tomb of Luces.

"Apparently they want to get pieces of his skeletal remains to be used as amulets," Dapudong said.

He said the remains of Luces will soon be transferred to the new municipal cemetery.

"We can guard it better there," Dapudong said.

He said superstitious Ilonggo residents of Mlang believed in the powers of amulets and talismans.

He said he has efficiently prevented many attempts by thieves to steal the skeletal remains of Luces since he assumed as cemetery administrator in 2014.

Luces, born on Jan. 15, 1941, died from an illness on Dec. 2, 1982.

It was the exploits of Luces that propelled the popularity of the anti-Moro Ilaga cult during the time of President Marcos.

The group was founded in 1970, during a gathering in a restaurant in Cotabato City by then ruling central Mindanao politicians Nicolas Dequiña and his political peers, Mayors Wenceslao Dela Cerna of Alamada,  Pacifico Dela Cerna of Libungan, Bonifacio Tejada of Mlang, Conrado Lemana of Tulunan, Jose Escribano of Tacurong, and Esteban Doruelo of Pigcawayan.

Dequiña, known as a firebrand political leader, was mayor of Midsayap town at that time.

They all have a common denominator—that of being rabidly hostile to Moro people.

The hometowns of the Ilaga founders belonged to the then still undivided Cotabato Empire Province.

The province was split into smaller provinces, to include Maguindanao, South Cotabato, and Sultan Kudarat, through a declaration by Marcos in 1974.

Tacurong, which was to become a component town of Sultan Kudarat, is now a chartered city.

The founders of the Ilaga accordingly had two anti-Moro benefactors, then Philippine Constabulary officers Capt. Manuel Tronco and Col. Carlos Cajelo.

Cajelo also an Ilonggo, was to become governor of North Cotabato and deputy defense minister for civil relations of Marcos.

It was widely construed that Cajelo was, if not the real brain behind the Ilaga, the "director" of the bloody show the group had put up, him being the provincial PC commander then of the empire province.

The atrocities done on Moro people by the Ilaga, however, only escalated the Moro secessionist activities in the area, bolstering anti-government sentiments immensely.

The Ilaga’s rampage and slaughter of Moro people started March 22, 1970, led by amulet-wearing Luces.