ILAGA, BARRACUDA AND ANTING-ANTING

In 1973, I volunteered reassignment to Bukidnon. The armed clashes between the “Barracuda” and the “Ilaga” had become fiercer for my comfort. These notorious groups got their names from animals of contrasting habits and habitats. “Barracuda” is a fearsome predator fish, while “Ilaga” is a fecund and hardy rodent that raid farms in large numbers. The “Ilaga”, a loose-knit group of Christian vigilantes that originated in Cotabato, was waging a war of attrition against the Barracuda, an endemic Muslim armed group. The Christian populace, terrorized by the presence of the Barracuda, welcomed the “Ilaga” as their protector. Many of them, including some of my co-workers, armed themselves with charms concocted of bits of human liver (or so the peddlers swore), soaked in X-7 perfume. Not a sucker for witchcraft or voodoo, I decided that flight was the safer thing to do. The Christian vigilantes, relying on their anting-anting (amulet) that supposedly made them invulnerable to bullets and bolos, fought ferocious and suicidal battles against the better-armed Muslim vigilantes. There were countless testimonies of the “Ilaga’s” invulnerability just as there were countless of them killed in battle for “taking a bath or having sex on Fridays” and other reasons.  The fanatical fighting spirit of the “Ilaga” was not lost to the military commanders who used them as the first line of defense in army and constabulary detachments. 

The case of a notorious “Ilaga” in my hometown may not be typical of the Christian vigilantes but the episodes of his life and fate were shared by many. He was weeding in his corm farm when a band of “Barracuda” attacked him. He miraculously survived but by the bullet wound in his buttock was sown the seeds of vengeance and vileness in his heart and prompted him to join the nemesis of his assailants.  This fanatic earned notoriety by collecting the ears of his victims. One day, because of a dare, a policeman hesitantly shot him with a Thompson rifle. For a moment his face became a mixture of anger and disbelief. The policeman was scared but primed to shot him if necessary, but the notorious vigilante walked away with a hole just below his collarbone. The bullet exited neatly with no bone damage. The wound healed without the benefit of modern medicine and for a time the dreaded “terminator” continued to sheepishly heed the inner voice that entrusted him the errand to eradicate the “Barracuda.” One day, he was found dead in the mangrove, reportedly salvaged by men in uniform.