Content warning: Graphic violencebitbet

COTABATO CITY — Gunmen killed in an ambush in Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao del Sur on Thursday, December 19, the wife of a Dulangan-Manobo chieftain who was tortured and executed by attackers right in their yard just two weeks ago. 

Besides the slain widow and tribal leader Cita Banog Angan, the incident also left their ethnic Teduray family driver, Ricky Tapioc, dead. 

Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Friday, December 20, that Angan and Tapioc were together in a vehicle on their way home to Barangay Mantao from the town center of Datu Hoffer when they were attacked by gunmen in Sitio Iskagit, Barangay Sayap, in the same town.

Relatives of the ambush victims and leaders of the non-Moro Dulangan-Manobo and Teduray tribes in Datu Hoffer and nearby towns had confided to reporters that they were certain that the same group was responsible for the separate atrocities that resulted in the death of Tapioc and Angan and, early on, of her husband, Baywan.

Baywan, known for his active involvement in peace and security programs against the markedly rampant intrusion into their ancestral domains of armed outsiders grabbing rice and corn farms of hapless villagers, was killed in a gangland-style execution by gunmen in their yard in Barangay Mantao in Datu Hoffer just two weeks ago.

He was reportedly tortured first before he was shot dead while kneeling, two hands raised, pleading for his life.

Records obtained from Army and police units in the adjoining provinces of Maguindanao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat indicate that 84 leaders of non-Moro indigenous groups, including Angan and her husband, Baywan, had been killed in one attack after another in Central Mindanao since 2018.

PAGASA weather specialist Veronica Torres said Kristine is still far from the Philippine landmass but is already affecting almost all areas in the country.

Members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament, among them the ethnic Teduray Froilyn Mendozabitbet, have condemned the fatal ambush of Angan and Tapioc last Thursday and called on officials of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police.