Kidapawan City – Warring Moro natives and Visayan settlers have amicably resolved nine years of fighting and discord over a land dispute that has claimed dozens of lives after a conciliatory meeting forged by Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evangelista here Friday.
Evangelista presided over the solemn forging of a covenant between the armed groups of Satar Manalondong, an ethnic Muslim kagawad of barangay Patadon, and Dodong Lunsagay, who heads the Visayan settlers from Aklan province, at sitio Nazareth of barangay Amas here.
Supt. John Kalinga, city police director, who joined the meeting, waived the enforcement of arrest warrants on Manalondong and Lunsagay, who are both facing charges for the separate killings that have marred the land dispute.
Visayan settlers cultivating the parcels of land had put up armed resistance against the alleged intrusion of Manalonding’s group that occasionally harvested crops on the belief that the lands belonged to their barangay.
At Friday’s conciliation meeting at the Amas barangay hall here, Evangelista persuaded the warring camps to proportionately share the disputed land, with the Manalondong group taking over five hectares, and Lunsagay’s group, getting a bigger portion.
Evangelista told reporters that local authorities will put up the physical demarcations of the disputed land next week as a prelude to the actual signing of peace covenant between the warring camps.
Military, police and civilian authorities, led both by Evangelista and North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Mendoza, have tried but failed to settle the land dispute, especially in 2014 when the fighting escalated into the beheading of a Moro farmer by settlers in purported retaliation for the killing of a fellow Aklanon by the Manalondong group.
http://www.mb.com.ph/9-year-kidapawan-feud-settled/
Evangelista presided over the solemn forging of a covenant between the armed groups of Satar Manalondong, an ethnic Muslim kagawad of barangay Patadon, and Dodong Lunsagay, who heads the Visayan settlers from Aklan province, at sitio Nazareth of barangay Amas here.
Supt. John Kalinga, city police director, who joined the meeting, waived the enforcement of arrest warrants on Manalondong and Lunsagay, who are both facing charges for the separate killings that have marred the land dispute.
The conflict, which started in 2007, involved a vast track of government land at sitio Nazareth of barangay Amas which is located only a few meters from the provincial capitol complex of North Cotabato.
At Friday’s conciliation meeting at the Amas barangay hall here, Evangelista persuaded the warring camps to proportionately share the disputed land, with the Manalondong group taking over five hectares, and Lunsagay’s group, getting a bigger portion.
Evangelista told reporters that local authorities will put up the physical demarcations of the disputed land next week as a prelude to the actual signing of peace covenant between the warring camps.
Military, police and civilian authorities, led both by Evangelista and North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Mendoza, have tried but failed to settle the land dispute, especially in 2014 when the fighting escalated into the beheading of a Moro farmer by settlers in purported retaliation for the killing of a fellow Aklanon by the Manalondong group.
http://www.mb.com.ph/9-year-kidapawan-feud-settled/
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