Two families want political control over Maguindanao. Dragging the military and the MILF, their feud threatens the peace talks between government and rebel forces.

As his routine would have it, Abdulkadir Candao, 65, drove his two young children to school on the morning of Feb. 3, 2003. On that particular Monday, however, the family didn’t reach Notre Dame University, which was around 30 minutes away from their house in Cotabato City. Armed men riding a motorcycle intercepted their car and opened fire. The children, aged 10 and 9, were unharmed, but their father died.

The Candaos are convinced—and have openly said—that the brains behind the murder is Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan. There’s been bad blood between their families for some time.

In the gubernatorial race two years earlier, Ampatuan defeated Abdulkadir’s younger brother, Zacaria Candao. The latter filed a protest before the Commission on Elections, alleging that he was cheated. At the time of his death, Abdulkadir was his brother’s chief security officer. The principal suspect in his murder, a certain Boy Bangkuri, was reportedly Ampatuan’s chief of security.

Vendetta killings resulting from family feuds, locally known as rido, are common in these parts. Rido can be ignited by any affront to a family’s pride or maratabat. It could be anything from a verbal slight or a quarrel over women and property.

The Candaos and Ampatuans are a particular concern, however, because government soldiers and Muslim rebels, particularly the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), have been dragged into their feud. There have been times when clashes between the two groups were rooted in the dispute between the two families.

This has hampered the peace process involving the government and the MILF. Governor Ampatuan is related to two key figures in the Arroyo government. One is Simeon Datumanong, who was justice secretary at the time of Abdulkadir’s murder, and now Maguidanao congressman once more. Another is Zamzamin Ampatuan, head of the Office on Muslim Affairs, a government unit directly under the Office of the President.

The President’s victory in Maguindanao in the 2004 election is largely attributed to the support of the Ampatuans. For his part, Zacaria Candao doesn’t hold any government position now, but his family remains a force to reckon with in the local political scene. In 1976, President Ferdinand Marcos appointed Candao as Maguindanao governor. From 1990 to 1993, he served as governor of what would become the forerunner of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). From 1995 to 2001, he was the governor of Maguindanao, but lost to Ampatuan in his reelection bid in 2001.

Candao has openly accused the military in Maguindanao of partisanship and of orchestrating his loss in the 2001 elections. Government troops, he claimed then, refused to allow his poll watchers into the precincts of some towns. Candao was the legal counsel of the now-mainstream Moro National Liberation Front, and has been tagged by the military as a supporter of the rebel MILF.

More Casualties

Abdulkadir Candao is not the only casualty of this feud; two nephews were also killed before him. On March 17, 2002, Murad Bajunaid was abducted and was later reported by locals to have been killed with a chain saw. His body was never found. On Jan. 19, 2003, Abdullah Datumanong was abducted and, eyewitnesses reported, was burned alive. The two Candao nephews were last seen in the town of Shariff Aguak, Ampatuan’s bailiwick. 

The Ampatuans also lost relatives. In September 2001, MindaNews quoted a statement from the office of Governor Ampatuan that said Ashgal Ampatuan, a nephew of the governor and brother of Mayor Akmad Ampatuan of Mamasapano town, was killed in a clash between government troops and the MILF in Barangay Tatapan in Shariff Aguak.

On Dec. 24, 2002, a homemade bomb exploded during a party inside the house of Saudie Ampatuan, mayor of Datu Piang town and son of the governor. Saudi and 12 persons were killed. 

The governor himself claims to have survived a number of ambush tries.

In an interview with NEWSBREAK, Norie Unas, provincial administrator and spokesperson of the governor, denied any feud between the Ampatuans and the Candaos. “We do not mind them now,” he said, referring to the Candaos. “You can say that they are now politically irrelevant.”

Bangkuri, according to Unas, was not personally connected to the governor, but was assigned to the latter officially from his mother unit in the military. “When we learned that he was a suspect, we let him go.”

Previously, however, Unas invariably blamed Governor Ampatuan’s political rivals and the MILF as those behind the attempts on the governor’s life.

In the case of the clash that resulted in his nephew’s death, the governor noted in a statement that the MILF elements who attacked Shariff Aguak were led by Ustadz Ameril Umbra Kato, reportedly an ally of former Governor Candao. In the death of Saudie Ampatuan, reports quoted Zamzamin Ampatuan as saying that the MILF targeted Saudie because the latter was pro-military.

During the interview, Unas took pains to point out the links between the Candao and the MILF. He said Candao was responsible for the creation of the MILF. “It was an open secret here at the time that he was funding the MILF.”

Another proof of Candao’s MILF links, according to Unas, is the fact that he won as governor despite having no bailiwick of his own. “He enjoys popularity due to the MILF.” Maguindanao, Unas said, is the breeding ground of the MILF. “They are all over the place.”

Convinced of the MILF threat, Ampatuan, who now moves about in a Humvee, called on the military to increase its presence in the area. The military obliged. Worse, a military official says, the Army in the area allowed the governor to maintain a virtual private army of at least 500 civilians.

A military source privy to the operations of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu) told NEWSBREAK, however, that there are two companies that receive orders from the governor. Each Cafgu company, the source said, has at least 88 personnel. The Cafgus were originally deployed to provide security for a Philippine-Malaysian venture that was supposed to establish a tapioca and cassava plantation in Talayan town, but they were never disbanded when the project didn’t push through.

The source said the governor and the mayors allied with him also maintain a total of about 300 armed civilian volunteers. Considered part of the government’s territorial defense system, civilian volunteer organizations (CVOs) are supposed to gather vital information on peace and order concerns within a locality and pass this on to proper authorities. Under the Local Government Code, they are supposed to remain unarmed. CVOs organized by the local government officials in Maguindanao, however, are fully armed.

Private Army

Maintaining such an army requires resources. A confidential AFP memorandum on the effects of the family feuds in Maguindanao, issued in November 2004, noted that the National Police and the military have been providing the CVOs with guns and ammunition.

The families of those recruited into the CVOs and the special Cafgus are housed in “core shelters built by the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development).”

Governed by unclear links to the military chain of command, members of the CVOs and special Cafgus, according to the memorandum, have pillaged and looted communities that are supposedly sympathetic to the MILF.  It added that communities affected by these atrocities often seek the protection of the MILF because they perceive the military to be partial to the Ampatuans and his political allies.

Making the situation worse is the fact that a number of CVO and special Cafgu members—and even the Ampatuans themselves—have separate feuds with members of the MILF or their relatives. In a number of instances, sources both from the military and the MILF said, skirmishes that brought the military to MILF camps were actually sparked by personal feuds between members of these civilian units and some MILF members who were trying to protect their relatives. In many instances, the MILF is unable to control its members, the military source said.

Unas denies that the military has no control over the Cafgus in Maguindanao. They do take commands from the governor, he says, but only because “they can’t possibly get their orders from the MILF.”

As for alleged abuses committed by the Cafgus, Unas says that people are just out to smear the reputation of the civilian units because they can’t attack the government while the Cafgus are there.

People are also hurling accusations at Ampatuan, Unas says, because “we are pursuing reforms in a non-violent way.”

The memorandum presented several solutions to this situation. One is to replace the 37th Infantry Battalion, which has been assigned in Maguindanao for almost four years now. Members of the battalion have apparently become friends of local officials. As a result, according to the memorandum, many of the unit’s personnel have gotten “deeply involved in the rido system.”

Another proposed solution is to impose penalties on military commanders who provide logistical support to the armed CVOs, and to implement more stringent measures in controlling the special Cafgu units.

These are short-term solutions. The final solution to the problem is obviously to resolve existing family feuds. But since the Candao-Ampatuan feud is rooted in political rivalry, it’s not easy to solve.

In the ARMM, clashes resulting from electoral conflicts have been avoided by dividing local government units between major clans. This meant carving new municipalities from the existing ones. This is particularly true in Maguindanao, where seven new municipalities have been created since 2001.

Unas said that by partitioning the municipalities between the main, “deserving” contenders, the time and efforts that otherwise would have been spent to “heal” problems resulting from the tight contest can be used for other purposes.

A bill seeking to divide the province of Maguindanao is pending before the Regional Legislative Assembly (RLA).

Locals say this is being floated as a solution to the Candao-Ampatuan feud. The proposal seeks to carve from Maguindanao the new province of the Iranons. The Iranon tribe occupies the towns that are close to the boundaries of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur. Sultan Kudarat, the hometown of Candao, is one of those towns.

Unas denies that the proposal is linked to the Candao-Ampatuan feud. He said that the proposal to split the province stemmed from the Iranons’ desire to find their identity, and that Ampatuan, during the 2001 campaign, promised to work on this. Unas said it was Candao who vetoed the bill when he was still governor.

In an interview with NEWSBREAK, Candao said he favors the creation of the Iranon province. President Arroyo is receptive to the idea, he said. During his term as governor, Candao said he thumbed down the proposal because the new province would cut across boundaries of legislative districts, and the RLA was supposedly not empowered to allow that.

A new province will give Candao his own turf. But questions on which towns will be carved out of Maguindanao continue to hamper the bill’s progress. At present, sources say, the bill is gathering dust in the RLA dockets.

Whether it passes the legislative mill remains to be seen. And even if it does, it is doubtful that creating too many fiefdoms will bring peace and progress to this troubled province.

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