I was told by the soldiers that this would protect my eardrums from bursting from the pressure of the shock waves. It was also my first experience in covering a war, riding inside the Army’s armored carriers, opening my mouth wide as I took pictures of soldiers firing 105mm Howitzer cannons. It was my first experience of war so close to home, where I witnessed lots of soldiers passing through my hometown, I could feel the ground shake every time Air Force planes would drop bombs in rebel strongholds, and I saw a lot of soldiers gathered outside hospitals where they brought the wounded for treatment. The “all-out war” declared by President Joseph Estrada, which spread to Lanao del Sur and all the way to Maguindanao, raged on for months, until government soldiers overran the MILF’s main camp, Camp Abubakar, in July.
By that time, the MILF rebels had already been flushed out from the municipal hall and the población area by Army and Marine troopers. I proceeded to Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte’s usual hotspot, the next morning. An armored personnel carrier watches over the municipal hall of Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte after the military flushed out MILF rebels who occupied the poblacion area, including the town hall, at the start of the “all-out war” in March 2000. I left Surigao City early the next day and rushed home, arriving in the evening.
I was 380 kilometers away from home when the MILF, led by Commander Bravo, attacked the municipality of Kauswagan, just 20 kilometers west of my hometown, on March 16, 2000.