KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines – Cotabato Gov. Jesus Sacdalan on Wednesday offered a P50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of each of the suspects in the recent attacks on churches in the province.

Sacdalan said the reward was expected to encourage the public to help in pinpointing the whereabouts of the suspects of two bombing attacks on the Iglesia Ni Cristo houses of worship in Kabacan and Carmen towns on Jan. 7 and Jan. 24, respectively.

The Cotabato acting provincial police director, Superintendent Renato Hiso, said men riding a motorcycle in tandem carried out the recent attacks. Police has earlier tagged members of the Red Scorpion Group (RSG) as responsible for the attack.

The group is allegedly engaged in extortion on business establishments and religious groups in the region.

Police outposts had already set up near the Iglesia ni Cristo churches in Kabacan to preempt similar incidents. Hiso said various force multipliers were also deployed near the churches.

Hiso urged the Iglesia ni Cristo leaders all over the province to strengthen their security forces and man their churches, especially during nighttime. - Williamor Magbanua, GMANews.TV

 

source: gmanews.tv

COTABATO CITY- Two Police Officers and a student were shot to death in this ciyt, with the assailants still unknown. 

This was bared by City PNP Chief  S/Supt. Willie Dangane, who disclosed that he ordered all police precinct chiefs to put up chokepoints/ checkpoints and to further tighten security measures to prevent the recurrence of similar (shooting) incidents.

The three separate shooting incidents that felled the two police officers and a student took place on Monday, October 06. 

First killed around 10:00 AM was P01 Bonifacio Sales, Jr., 39 years old, and a resident of Parang, Shariff Kabunsuan province.

Reports said that Sales was negotiating Notre Dame Avenue on board his single motorcycle when 4 men also riding on 2 single motorcycles drove along and shot him unrelentingly with M-16 armalite rifle.

Sales sustained multiple gunshot wounds and died on the spot. The victims 9mm service pistol was believed taken by the suspects who fled toward the supermarket area after the incident.

P01 Sales, who was assigned in Davao City, was a son of Ret. Col. Bonifacio Sales, Sr. who was also shot dead near the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center (CRMC) in 2006.

The victim was once assigned here but transferred to Davao city because he allegedly got into trouble with some individuals here in the performance of his duties. He came here just to attend a court hearing of the case filed against him.

The second victim was P01 Asgar Kamaong Naro, a security escort of Director Antonio Andamen of the Department of Environment and Natural Recourses (DENR, ARMM).

Initial police investigation showed that P01 Naro was just sitting down on a chair outside the office of Dir. Andamen at the ORG compound around 4:00 Pm when the suspect, identified as P01 Samir Emblawa, approached and riddled him with bullets from M-16 armalite rifle.

Naro sustained multiple bullet wounds and succumbed instantly.

The suspect, P01 Samir Emblawa, who is also a security escort of Secretary Kabuntalan Emblawa of the same officer (DENR, ARMM) simply escaped.

The third victim of shooting incident, also on the same day, was a student, identified as Justin Ambolodto, who is a resident of Sousa St. this city.

Ambolodto just came out of an internet café at Macapagal St. around 10:00 Pm when a group of men mauled him.

Discontented of beating him (victim) up, one of the suspects drew a gun and shot him twice.

He was rushed to a hospital but expired on the way.

The suspects casually got away.

Police initially theorized that personal grudges may be the motives of those killings while a thorough and impartial investigations by the task force are underway. (Report from the Director, Committee on Information (MILF), Cotabato City)

COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/05 October) – The Oblates of Notre Dame (OND), an indigenous  women religious congregation founded in Cotabato City,  is appealing to government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) “to agree on the cessation of hostilities and to return to the negotiating table.”

“We urge you to speak on behalf of the peoples and communities and for the rights of the destitute; to decree what is just, defend all the needy and the poor of Mindanao so that we can at last proclaim Peace to the far and near,” the OND said in a statement issued during a meeting on October 1

“Our hearts are weary of unrest.  We have either seen or heard enough bloodshed.  Loss of life, destruction of properties, wreckage of infrastructure, break up in relationships are considered simply as collateral damage.  All of us- civilians or combatants, policymakers, key players in decision-making  or even the sheer spectators- must have acknowledged by now the enormous end result of this armed conflict.  We can never grow complacent or callous to the sights, sounds and cost of war,” the nuns said.

Half a million persons have been displaced by the renewed hostilities between government and the MILF since August 10, following the cancellation of the August 5 formal signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MIOA-AD) in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) situation report 51 as of 8 a.m. October 4, said a total of  110,994 families of 531, 949 have been displaced because of the military operations against MILF commanders Umbra Kato and Bravo in some villages in Maguindanao, Shariff Kabunsuan, North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Sarangani and the attacks by the MILF in some villages in Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato and Sarangani

The NDCC report says that there are still 292,632 “current IDPs” (internally displaced persons), 227,504 of that outside evacuation centers and 65,128 in evacuation centers.

The NDCC report also states 83 persons were killed, 75 of them civilians and 104 others injured, 87 of them civilians; that 283 houses were burned, 202 of them entirely. 

Damage to property has been recorded at P189.3 million (P180.7 million as of Oct. 1), with  P141.8 million in agriculture and P47.4 million in infrastructure (up from P38.8 million as of Oct. 1).

Relief assistance has reached P147.2 million, according to the NDCC, P20.9 million of that  from “NGOs, INGOs (international NGOs) and the United Nations system.”

In a statement titled “May the Blessed Virgin Mary/Mariam inspire us all in our resolve

TOGETHER INTO THE WAY OF PEACE: An appeal to end all armed confrontations,” the nuns said they share with all the “intense longing for a lasting peace in Mindanao.”

“During the last 50 years of our congregation’s foundation, we have experienced untold worry for the peoples with whom we live and work in our various mission areas, as a result of alternating yet massive armed hostilities. Presently, we strongly detest the horrible consequence of the war between the forces of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).”

The nuns said several barangays in Maguindanao and North Cotabato are “desolate, without inhabitants; houses are without families, farms with crops ready for  harvest are abandoned, market places that used to be the hub of the community are deserted; trade and travel are prevented from being freely carried out.”

The nuns said hundreds of thousands of villagers have had to flee to evacuation centers “and suffer the indignity of dependence on rations and the inevitable threat against the health of children.”

“With Christians, Moslems and Lumads as mission partners, the Oblates of Notre Dame share with the vision where the Mindanawons will live in this land, in secure dwelling, with food and drink in steady supply as fruits of our labor,” the nuns said.

The nuns are appealing to the government and MILF as well as individuals, groups and institutions to “act, according to their spheres of influence, to address the roots of the Mindanao conflict.”

The Society of Oblates of Notre Dame (OND) was founded in 1956 in Cotabato, Philippines by two Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), Father George Dion, OMI subsequently Apostolic Vicar of Jolo and Tawi-Tawi and Archbishop Gerard Mongeau, OMI, DD of the Archdiocese of Cotabato.

“They were with the first four daring missionaries who landed in Manila, Philippines in 1939. They pioneered the OMI missionary adventures in the provinces of Cotabato and Sulu, considered the most difficult areas in the Philippines. The country then was faced with poverty and shortage of priests and mission partners,” the OMI website says.

As of 2006, there were 167 OND nuns. (MindaNews)

source: Mindanews.com

The City of Cotabato is one of the cities of the Philippines located in Mindanao. Cotabato City is an exclave of the SOCCSKSARGEN region found within the boundaries of Shariff Kabunsuan province, but is independent of that province. Cotabato City is distinct from and should not be confused with the province of Cotabato.

Cotabato City is the regional center of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao but the city is actually part of the SOCCSKSARGEN region.

Cotabato’s population was about 150,450 in 2000 census.

Cotabato is approximately 698.9 nautical miles (1294 km) from Manila, the country’s capital, and is bounded by the municipalities of Sultan Kudarat to the north—with Rio Grande de Mindanao separating the two—Kabuntalan to the east, and Datu Odin Sinsuat to the south. The city faces Illana Bay, part of the Moro Gulf, to the west. Cotabato City has a total land area of 176.0 square kilometers.

Map Location of Cotabato City