Injured	Killed
1	1

Date: 12 January 2013
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/339541/1-killed-another-hurt-in-basilan-clan-war

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – One person was killed and another critically wounded when armed men belonging to rival families clashed in Sibago Island, off Basilan province on Saturday, officials confirmed.
But the number of casualties could actually be higher than what was reported, provincial officials said, as details coming from Sibago Island remains sketchy as of late Saturday.
“So far, the reports we have been getting remain sketchy but what was clear, based on the report of the village chief there, was that a group headed by a Gais Mansur attacked members of the Kullong family,” Muhammad Ajul, Basilan Mayor Talib Pawaki told the Inquirer by phone.
Pawaki, who has jurisdiction over the island-village, said the initial figure could go higher as details become clearer.
“We were told there’s a number of killed and hurt,” he said.
Pawaki said another report he got from policemen and soldiers, who had responded to the 9 a.m. hostility, was that Mansur’s group had suffered one death in the gun battle.
Tahira Ismael, Basilan provincial administrator, said it has become a puzzle for local officials that the feud between the two families, which had been settled two years ago, had been rekindled.
She said with the incident, the provincial government has requested the military and the police to deploy more forces to the area to prevent the violence from going out of hand.
Pawaki said he was still trying to negotiate for a sea vessel at the Lamitan wharf, which could bring him and other officials to Sibago Island, so they could determine what started the fresh clash.
He said that from the initial report they got, Mansur’s group had initially shot a Pujong Arasad, who is a relative of the Kullong’s, before proceeding to the community where the family lives.
“Arasad remains in critical condition at the Basilan Provincial Hospital in Isabela City,” Pawaki said.
Feuds between prominent families are common in areas of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where many civilians possess firearms.
In most cases, unless settled, these feuds erupt into major violence that would sometimes drag in members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
A case in point was the feud between the Mangudadatu and the Ampatuan families of Maguindanao.
The said feud, which was political in nature, erupted into what is now known as the country’s bloodiest politically-related violence.
At least 58 people – 32 of them journalists – were killed in November 2009 when alleged members of the Ampatuan family, led by then Datu Unsay mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., flagged down a convoy of supporters and relatives of then Buluan town vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu.
The convoy, which included vehicles bearing the journalists, was on its way to Shariff Aguak for the filing of Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy for the Maguindanao gubernatorial race against Andal Jr.
Andal Jr. and most members of the Ampatuan family had been arrested over the incident while Mangudadatu became governor of Maguindanao after the elections held a few months later.
Acting ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman admitted that feuds were among factors that have stunted the growth of the five-province region.
ARMM Assemblywoman Samira Gutoc-Tomawis of Lanao del Sur said that family and clan feuds are characterized by sporadic outbursts of retaliatory violence between families and kinship groups, as well as between communities.
Hataman said some feuds indeed start from a simple spat such as in the case of an incident in Sumisip, Basilan a few years back.
He said the violence involving two families there started when a man, whose clothes got splattered with dirt by a passing tricycle, shot to death the driver.
Hataman said efforts were continuing to patch up feuding families and there had been successes.