Inug-ug is one of the villages in Pagalungan Maguindanao. It is said that Inug-ug before is a peaceful village located not very far from the town of Pagalungan. The people in Pagalungan are mostly Moslem. Since there were encounters in Inug-ug the people were force to move to the town, and left their farm to escape the war between the armed men. They just only went there during daytime to work and at night they went back to their houses.
I talked one of the resident, named zipudin. According to him, it s started since year 2000, when the government soldier meet the Muslim rebels in Inug-ug.
Before, there were many houses that are built in that village, but because of the encounter, the houses are also burned, including the school and both of them never accepted who of them was responsible of burning. The people have nothing to do but to left their farm and find the place that is safe from the bullet and bombs. If how many times in the year are having war, the evacuations are also happened the same, until same of the residents decided not to build a house in their village anymore. They looked for a land or lot near the town for them to build a house wherein they knew that they are safe from war.
We went in Inug-ug on April 9,2003.My eyes is roaming around in the wide fields, that are planted with different kind of plants, but noticeably the trunk of the coconut tree that was hurtled by the bullet. I also noticed the special school, which I heard that the school was established through the collaboration of the resident of Inug-ug, but all of the sudden when we comeback on the next day we heard the news that the school was burned the night of April 9, because there were fighting happened again. The school was intentionally built for the children who did not continue their studies because they are affected of the fight between the government soldiers and the Muslim rebels, but all of a sudden the school was burned.
The encounter is not only happened in the village of Inug-ug but also in the different village of Pagalungan, wherein the armed men are possible to be seen. Since then they called their place” THE GHOST TOWN” because of war that continuously happened in the different village in their municipality. Ghost because they are afraid of the sudden fight between those armed men, which seems like a ghost in the night that suddenly appeared which you don’t know where they came from. The people their compared their town to the ghost that can be seen in the night because the fight usually happened at night, and they can hear the simultaneous explosion, that it compelled them to escaped and left their houses, animals and sometimes all of their important belongings. The most important for them is their lives and the lives of the children.
Whenever there were encounters they went to the evacuation center. They occupied the different schools in their town that are safe. The government agencies were given their support as well as the Diocese of Kidapawan. But because of the large number of the evacuees in the different barangay’s the contribution of food is lacking in addition for these, the place is not safety for them because some are only sleeping in a small tent and it is not safety especially for the babies, and that they are getting ill.
The evacuees are not only needed for food, shelter and medicine, but above all they are longing for peace, so that they can go back to their village and live normally without hesitation and fear. But how they can go back to normal life when such fighting is separately happened in the different barangay of Pagalungan, between the government soldiers and the Muslim rebels. How they can find peace that they are longing for the very long time. We hope that the government officials should make the immediate solution in this problem. We are also asking for every individual who have a kind heart to help them and continue to pray for peace.