Kidapawan village guards trained to disperse crowd during ‘angry’ protests

KIDAPAWAN CITY – In order not to repeat the April 1, 2016 incident dubbed by many as the ‘Kidapawan massacre’, the city government trained a thousand of its Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team (BPAT) members in ‘crowd dispersal’ and ‘crowd control.’The city government, in its assessment of the incident released to media two years ago, admitted the local police and the BPAT members needed some ‘training’ in dispersing mob of protesters.During the two-day training which culminated on Wednesday, the participants underwent a simulation exercise where local police interns acted as protesters.Almost two years ago today, the more than 5,000 protesters, many of them farmers from towns in Arakan, Antipas, President Roxas, Magpet, and Makilala in North Cotabato, started to gather around streets in Kidapawan City, in particular in front of the warehouse of the National Food Authority (NFA).When they found out the NFA compound was highly secured by local police and soldiers from the 39thInfantry Battalion, protesters marched from the area until they reached Spottswood Methodist Center where they put up human barricades and started to close the national highway.On April 1, 2016, the local police, with some backups from the BPAT and other force multipliers, tried to disperse the crowd. It, however, became bloody when protesters, using stones and hard wood, hit one of the policeman that led members of the Special Action Force (SAF) to fire bullets hitting at least three of the rallyists.One of the protesters died and at least 13 others were wounded, including a policeman from M’lang PNP.