COTABATO CITY --- The police and military are together guarding against any possible repercussion to the peace and order in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte of the separate gun attacks, within just two days, that left two popular barangay officials in the municipality dead.
Residents and traditional Moro community leaders in Datu Odin Sinsuat, one of the 12 towns in Maguindanao del Norte, told reporters on Wednesday, October 14, that that they are worried of possible revenge by the relatives of the slain Manalao Nur, Sr. and Amil Beno, on any one they might construe as involved in the the separate atrocities.
Brig. Gen. Christopher Abecia, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and the acting commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog, separately said on Wednesday that local executives had, on their behest, talked to leaders of the Nur and Beno clans in Datu Odin Sinsuat and asked them to give police probers and military intelligence agents enough time to put closure to the two deadly incidents.
Nur, chairman of Barangay Dados in Datu Odin Sinsuat, died instantly from multiple bullet wounds sustained in an ambush on Sunday in a secluded area in Esperanza town in Sultan Kudarat province. Esperanza is about 70 kilometers south of Datu Odin Sinsuat, where his clan has a traditional bastion.
Nur was riding a Nissan pick-up truck, along with a driver, when they were attacked by gunmen at a stretch of a highway in an interior area in Esperanza, near the predominantly Moro village where he has a second home and where he reportedly planned to settle after his now third and last term as chairman of Barangay Dados, a public service stint preceded by his longtime involvement in community peacebuilding activities as one of the respected Moro datus in the area.
Nur's assailants immediately escaped using getaway motorcycles, according to officials of the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office. His relatives had told reporters that they are certain that his killers are residents of Datu Odin Sinsuat. They refused to elaborate, however.
The incident was followed by the fatal ambush on Monday in Poblacion Dalican in Datu Odin Sinsuat of Datu Amil Beno, a member of the barangay council in Barangay Bungued, an interior area in the municipality.
Beno, also a scion of a big Maguindanaon clan, was active in supporting programs promoting religious and cultural solidarity among the Muslim, Christian and indigenous non-Moro communities in Datu Odin Sinsuat.
Beno was riding a tricycle when he was attacked by pistol-wielding men at a stretch of the Bungued-Dalican farm-to-market road in the Poblacion Dalican area. His assailants also rode motorcycles as they escaped, leaving him sprawled on the concrete road, lifeless.
"Our intelligence units are helping officials of the police stations in Esperanza in the faraway Sultan Kudarat province and in Datu Odin Sinsuat, which is near Cotabato City, identify the perpetrators of the two incidents," Bunayog said.