Thursday, June 26, 2008 Tribal elders to meet warring clans in North Cotabato By Malu C. Manar Correspondent
KIDAPAWAN CITY -- The tribal elders of two warring clans in a Moro-dominated village in Carmen, North Cotabato will meet Thursday in a neutral ground to resolve the ongoing feud between them, according to Carmen police.
The grudge between the Onayan and Kadingilan families is getting intense that it resulted to the evacuation of some 79 families from Kibayao village, according to Carmen Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Miraluna Ortega.
The evacuation came a day after the Onayan and Kadingilan families, most of them members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) operating in the area, exchanged fires along Kibayao road.
"Though no one was reported killed or wounded during the armed confrontation, but still many evacuated to safer grounds," Ortega said.
The Municipal Government, through its social welfare office, has already distributed relief goods to the evacuees, reports from Carmen PNP said.
Ortega hinted the clan feud is a result of intense political rivalry between two families.
The Onayans, based on the information gathered by Carmen PNP, used to rule Kibayao village. But when Abdulatip Kadingilan ran as village chair in early 2000, his family started to rule the area. In October 2007 barangay elections, Abdulatip's wife, Halima, won as village chair.
Last Friday, Abdulatip escaped death when ambushed by at least five unidentified armed men.
Abdulatip sustained gunshot wounds on different parts of his body. He was aboard his Toyota pick-up when waylaid by the gunmen along Barangay Kibayao, some 100 meters away from the headquarters of the Philippine Army's 602nd Brigade and about half a kilometer away from the Carmen-Bukidnon highway.
