Better late than never.
Realizing that their futile desire to annihilate each other’s clan is going nowhere, two huge and influential clans in Maguindanao have agreed to settle their 45-year-old “rido” (family feud) in a peaceful manner.
Amid the presence of hundreds of family members, the feuding Omar and Midtimbang clans forged documents at the municipal hall of Talayan, Maguindanao, over the weekend affirming that no one from both sides shall ever initiate wrongdoings that can spark atrocities between their families again.
Negotiations for the settling down of the two clans started since last month through the help of elders and top provincial politicians until the eventual amity marked by a “kanduli” (Thanksgiving party) on Nov. 28 that went on for several days.
The conflict between the Omars of South Upi and Midtimbangs of Guindulungan is one of the longest existing conflicts in the history of the province, marked by dozens of armed reprisals from among its members.
“But that is in the past now, we will start anew with normal lives without fear on anybody or anything,” Guindulungan Mayor Datu Ali Midtimbang said.
The recent peace signing activity were headed by Midtimbang and his elder brother, former Talayan Vice-Mayor Ali Midtimbang while South Upi Vice-Mayor Mohammad Omar Jr., as witnessed by top officials of both military and police units in the province, led the other side.
With their settlement, both families have encouraged other warring clans in Maguindanao to resolve “everything in paper and not in armed conflict” citing such would affect, among others, their communities and continuity of the
Long-drawn disagreements over political control had dragged the Midtimbang and Omar families into the decades-old “rido”, notwithstanding close kinship brought about by intermarriages of several family members.
In retrospect, the feud started in 1966 as triggered by an intense argument between then Cotabato Provincial Deputy Governor Datu Guindulungan Midtimbang and his first cousin Hadji Rashid Omar over rampant incidents of cattle rustling in the area.
Unknown to the two men, Hadji Rashid’s son, then a teenager named Disumimba, was emotionally hurt on overhearing the argument from proximate distance, leading him to silently plot on killing his uncle, the deputy governor.
Accordingly, Disumimba carried out his plan successfully, which started the conflict that dragged on for decades.
Forming his own group of formidable armed men, the younger Omar later became the subject of a constabulary manhunt and eventually slain in an encounter in
A son of Disumimba also later became a military captain, but unknown assailants shot him dead at a hotel room in
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=10&sid=&nid=10&rid=593066
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