January 19, 2010 - Gunmen fired at a passenger bus in Zamboanga City, wounding at least a dozen of people, a report reaching luwaran today.

The attack occurred at around 9 p.m. on Saturday in a village of Licomo, 85 kilometers east of this city.

Owned by Rural Transit, the bus was heading for Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur province when it was strafed by gunmen believed to be extortionists.

One of the wounded was a doctor, Maita Blanco, who, with the rest of the victims, was immediately rushed to a hospital in the town of Ipil in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

No group or individual claimed responsibility for the ambush.

This city has been run by the Lobregats for more than a decade, first the mother, Maria Clara Lobregat, and now by the son, Celso Lobregat. Both hated the Moros very much to the point of opposing everything good for the latter, including the inclusion of some villages in the city as part of the Category-A territory of the future Bangsamoro state or sub-state.

The Lobregats have Spanish blood in their veins, thanks to a Spanish soldier married to a local maiden, thereby giving rise to a new generation of creoles in Mindanao.

The term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kriulo, kriol, krio, kreol, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings. Those terms are almost always used in the general area of present or former colonies in other continents, and originally referred to locally born people with foreign ancestry.

Many of the creoles in the Philippines are proved to be hardened and inveterate anti-Moro biases, prejudices, or hatred, including former but ousted President Joseph Estrada and Rep. Teddy Locsin.

Other creoles, however, are not as anti-Moro as the Lobregats, like the Ayalas in Makati, who in the late 60s donated a lot there for building a mosque but did not materialize because of mishandling of some Moro leaders at the time. A statue of the legendary Moro leader of all time, Sultan Kudarat of Maguindanao, also rises here. This epoch saw the rise of post-independence, post-World War II leaders like Sen. Congressman Pendatun, Sen. Domocao Alonto, Rep. Rashid Lucman, Rep. Ututalum Amilbangsa, Gov. Datu Udtog Matalam, Gov. Ali Dimaporo, and many others.