COTABATO CITY: At least 20 Moro rebels and seven government soldiers were killed in fierce fighting in Maguindanao as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was visiting the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak some 10 kilometers from the battle site on Friday afternoon, the military said yesterday.

An Army official who was with the presidential party said Arroyo was told about the fighting but she was not deterred by it and proceeded with the visit.

The president flew to Maguindanao from Davao City, where she earlier attended a gathering of provincial legislators, to meet Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan and Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The two officials are among her staunchest supporters in Mindanao.

“She went on with the activity as scheduled,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the military’s 6th Infantry Division, said of the president after being told of the fighting.

“The president appeared unmindful of her security, anyway the fighting was far away,” Ponce added.

Ponce said the fighting started at 5:30 a.m. when about 80 Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas under Ombra Kato harassed government forces on patrol in Sitio (sub-village) Maningay in Barangay (village) Bialong in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

He said the firefight lasted for about eight hours before the rebels withdrew.

Five soldiers were also wounded while the MILF suffered an undetermined number of injuries, Ponce said.

“Clearing operations are still ongoing. We expected the number of fatalities on the rebels’ side to increase after the clearing operations,” Ponce said.

Eid Kabalu, MILF civil-military affairs chief, said their forces were aware of the president’s visit to Maguindanao on Friday.

But he said they did not initiate the attacks; he alleged the military started it when they attacked a community where some of the rebels’ families lived.

“Our troops were quiet in their camp, they were the ones attacked by soldiers, so naturally our troops fought back,” Kabalu said.

He also sought to correct the military’s statement that Kato led the band of rebels that clashed with the soldiers.

“The soldiers encountered our regular forces, not those under Kato,” he said.

Kabalu also said the military bloated the rebel toll because only two guerrillas were confirmed to have been killed in the fighting.

He also said that MILF forces destroyed two armored personnel carriers.

— With a report from INS