Maguindanao security officials refute IAP report

From the Philippine News Agency (Aug 14): Maguindanao security officials refute IAP report

Security officials here refuted Thursday claims by the International Alert Philippines (IAP) that Maguindanao province accounts for most of the recorded cases of violence in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) the past two years.

Military officials assigned in Maguindanao were amazed at the IAP’s contention that political violence had cost 862 lives from 2011 to 2013.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said he found the claim as bothersome and appeared to be not well founded.

In its report, the IAP said political violence in the province during the period had caused the death of 862 persons, with 973 wounded, 58 missing or kidnapped.

It also said a total of 22,433 families in the province were displaced, as a result of violence in the area.

“I don’t know from where those statistics have come from. We had relatively peaceful local elections in 2010 and in 2013 and we have been seeing the influx of foreign investors putting up banana and oil palm plantations in Maguindanao since early 2011,” a visibly surprised Hermoso told reporters.

”We don’t deny there were evacuations as a result of harassment by Moro bandits and recurring floods in Maguindanao during that period, but not due to political violence," he said.

Hermoso admitted there were skirmishes involving Army and BIFF forces in Maguindanao but combined Army, rebel and civilian fatalities could not reach 862.

Maguindanao is the bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which signed a peace deal with Manila since 1997 which also resulted in zero Army-MILF clashes.

Hermoso said foreign investors would not come to Maguindanao if the area is unsafe.

The ARMM’s regional peace and order council, chaired by Gov. Mujiv Hataman, said it has no record of the figures the IAP had used.

"Amazing," was all Hataman could say about the IAP's report.

Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu was equally surprised with the report and urged IAP to rectify is global report.

Both Mangudadatu and Hataman were surprised the IAP report did not quote the sources of its statistics.

IAP is a member of the International Alert, a global peace-building organization operating in 25 countries in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=672945