I'm Intrigue About the RPGs, Barretts of the MILF

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I was rubbing elbows recently with Muslim dominated Barangay Dunguan, M'lang Cotabato Chairman Patotin Sagadan and my classmate La Consolacion Kapitan John Rey Alingasa during the visit of beauteous Cotabato Province Governor Nancy Catamco at the M’lang town plaza.

I told the young and amiable Kapitan Sagadan when he would invite me to his village that I did not see since my parents, two siblings, and I migrated in the rustic town from our previous residency at the Philippine Military Academy in 1973 when my military father was assigned in Awang, Maguindanao.

“Anytime, you bring Kap John Rey!” Sagadan, whom I met with the 22 kapitans last year at the house of the sister of Antiquino dominated New Lawaan Barangay Chairman Wennie Jordan,Sr., in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan while they cool their heels there as we imbibed our quick quaffed of cold San Miguel Beer Lights and Fundador. They prepared then in trekking with their rented vans from Clark Airport in Pampanga the high altitude cool Baguio City for their Lakbay-Aral.

“Gusto ko magpa picture ng Barret at RPG-7 para maipagyabang ko sa mga taga Luzon,” I jested to Sagadan.

LAUNCHERS. Soldiers of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao sporting their RPGs. The weapon is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Photo Cre: Public Radio International.

The Barrett M107 is a .50 caliber, shoulder-fired, semi-automatic sniper rifle.

The RPG-7 is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

I was further intrigue about these deadly instruments of death because when Market Supervisor Jonathan “Titoy” Gumban, a fellow alumni at the protestant college, told me that after a home made bomb exploded and tore a restaurant, killed two persons, and injured 25 innocent civilians at around 7:30 p.m. in that fateful November 2014 in the first class landlocked town, the local government unit requested every one of the 37 barangays of M’lang to guard with their Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team (BPAT) and Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit( CAFGU), of course with soldiers and cops, in their schedule time the market 24 hours a day.

“Grabe, sa tanan nga barangay didto mo makita ang mga matibay nga armas sang BPAT sang Dunguan (Gezz, of all barangays, you would be amazed watching those lethal weapons wielded by the BPAT of Dunguan),' Titoy and Giting Cajuarao, his assistant, crowed to me in Ilonggo.

Everybody knows that the BPAT there double as members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who guarded the town because some of the victims of these senseless bombings were innocent Muslims dastardly perpetrated by radical jihadists' Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) brainwashed Muslims through their leader Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.

Marwan was killed by Special Action Force (SAF) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) (allegedly joined by United States Army Special Forces) who clashed with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the MILF.

That February 4, 2015 firefight in Tukanalipao, Mamasapano, Maguindanao saw 44 members of SAF, 18 from MILF and BIFF, and five civilians dead.

Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) rebels stand guard near a Barrett sniper rifle along a road at Camp Darapanan rebel base in Maguindanao province. Photo Credit: Newstrust.org

***

Cops diligently guarding the market place of the landlocked town had been an order of the day since I was a kid in the middle of the 1970s.

In the early 1980s when I was in first year high school, two camouflage black bonnet wearing cops dragged me at the wee hour because they found me sitting at a concrete bench near the century old acacia tree fronting Alcalde store.

“Are you the one robbing the stores here?” a stout policeman interrogated me.

“No! I ran away from home because I punched my classmate and my mother will hit me with a stick,” I reasoned out.

“No, we are going to bring you to jail, “another cop gripped my young frail left hand and threatened to drag me again.

“No, I am not a theft. My father is that soldier brought by two military helicopters whenever he comes home!”

I referred to the two Vietnam Vintage Huey Helicopters my father rode whenever he left Awang Airport in Maguindanao or Sasa Airport in Davao City.

They were two choppers customarily flying around since when one of the gray rotary blade aircraft landed the other was roving around the area with its menacing two M-60 machine guns ready to tear to smithereens any bad guy lurking its Belgian made FAL automatic rifle who would harm the crew and passengers of the docking chopper.

One of the pilots who used to drop-by papa was then Ilonggo Air Force Captain Red Kapunan, a RAM and mistah of Gringo Honasan at the PMA, whom papa met when we lived at the Academy till early of 1970s.

Since it was 2 early morning, the duo told me in their balaclava masks that they would leave me at the bench because they were going to patrol the nook and cranny of the market place.

“Kilala ka namon. Indi ka mag sibat kay kabalo kami kung diin ka namon pangita-on (We know you. Don’t try to abscond because we know where we are going to pick you),” the stout peace officer threatened me again.

Trembling, I told them that I will not escape. “Usapang lalaki hindi ako tatakas,” I mimicked what Fernando Poe, Jr, Ace Virgel, or Ramon Revilla Sr (the father of Bong) line I saw and heard for the umpteenth times at the white celluloid screen at the nearby Sulo Movie House.

At 5 A.M the two cops returned without their hood. The fat one was an amiable friend who made a fool out of me earlier.

“Nong, kamo man lang gali ina gin pahibi ninyo pa ako (Big brother it was you you made me cry),” I told him smarting.

He told me to forget everything and joined them hurriedly as the sun rise was looming.

“Diin kita makadto (where are we going)?,” I asked them excitedly by thinking somebody was arrested somewhere and I am going to punch that guy in the nose.

They told me to stop asking questions after I told the fat cop to lend to me his .38 caliber revolver as they both had their M-16 Armalite rifles probably that Vietnam War's vintage given by the Yanks to us Flips, er, Filipino military.

I joined them and disappeared in the dark parts of the labyrinth of the huge market as we surreptitiously went to every bathroom area of the stalls like Diamante Retail Store and Jumaway and Cofreros Restaurants and they asked me to join them peeping (Ilonggo's word: Panglingling or Boso in Tagalog) those young sales ladies who took their bath to prepare and refresh themselves for another regular day of work.

As I did my first voyeur I was trembling. I remembered the cartoon I saw at Filipino comics magazines Nong Ezer Castillo sell and lease to customers inside the old terminal building.

It was about a naughty boy being scared by his mother that whenever he did a mischief she will deliver him to a Bombay (a turbaned and thick long bearded Indian selling garments at 5/6 or 20 percent of its original price).

When the boy saw an Indian probably to collect the installment fees of the stuff his mother bought, he scampered away and hid inside the skirt of his mother. But he immediately left out and confronted his mother bawling: MOTHER HOW DARE YOU, YOU'RE A BOMBAY TOO!

Enough said about those Bombays I saw inside those toilets or showers thanks but no thanks to those sick policemen tee he!

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)