BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

MAGUINDANAO – Authorities foiled Wednesday an attempt to bomb the venue of a medical mission of Gov.

COTABATO CITY-- The city mayor on Sunday asked school officials to fly the Philippine flag in campuses at half-mast for five days in sympathy with the victims of the deadly bombing here last week.Halima Satol-Ibrahim, the city government’s chief information officer, said Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi has asked local school administrators to raise the flag at half-mast from Monday till Friday.In a statement, the mayor said the move is meant to honor the fatalities in the December 31 bombing here, Jonathan Tasic Torribiano and Mariam Ulama Cali, and show oneness with the 34 others who were hurt

COTABATO CITY - Authorities are bracing for possible diversionary attacks by violent extremists now that the hunt for two of several suspects in the December 31 bombing here is on.Two were killed while 37 others were wounded in the blast near the entrance to the Southseas Mall here that preceded the deactivation by bomb experts of another improvised explosive device found near a lottery outlet in the second floor of the establishment about an hour later.Superintendent Rolly Octavio of the Cotabato City police revealed on Saturday that they now have photos of the two bombers who left the bag

COTABATO CITY
-- Security officials are not discounting a vendetta angle in
Monday's bombing here, a possible retaliation for the deaths of four Islamic
militants, two of them foreigners, in a military operation nine days before.

COTABATO CITY – The head of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has condemned the
bombing in front of a mall here hours before New Year that left two dead and 34
others wounded.

Al Haj Murad,
MILF chieftain, in a statement, described the bombing as an act of cowardice,
inhuman and atrocious.

An evil act,
Murad said, adding that he was saddened it came in the thick of preparations
for the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

MAGUINDANAO --- The new presidential peace adviser who fought southern Muslim secessionists for decades endorsed the Bangsamoro Organic Law during a large multi-sectoral forum in the province Sunday.The retired Armed Forces chief Gen.

COTABATO CITY ---- One of the two fatalities in the bombing here Monday was an employee of a commission that authored the law meant to end decades of secessionist strife in the country’s restive south.The bombing near the entrance to the Southseas Mall along Don Rufino Alonzo Avenue here left 37 others wounded, five of them minors.Jonathan Tasic Torribiano, who was driver of Melanio Ulama of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), and the other fatality, Mariam Ulama Cali, died from shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies.Ulama is a timuay (chieftain) in central Mindanao’s in

COTABATO CITY –
Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(ARMM) has condemned the bombing in front of a mall here Monday, leaving two
persons dead and dozens injured.

Two persons
were killed and more than 40 others were hospitalized due to shrapnel injuries
in various parts of the body following a bomb explosion at about 1:50 p.m.,
more or less 10 hours before the New Year.

COTABATO CITY --- Hundreds of wanted radical Islamists surrendered in 2018, remorseful of abusing a religion that moderate peace-loving Muslims find perfect and incomparable.In Basilan province alone, 187 members of the Abu Sayyaf, feared for its practice of beheading captives if ransom demands are not met, returned to the fold of law this year through the efforts of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Western Mindanao Command and the Regional Police Office-ARMM.More than a hundred Abu Sayyaf bandits in Basilan surrendered from between 2016 to 2017.No fewer than 30 members of the

BASILAN --- Clerics unanimously endorsed the Bangsamoro Organic Law in a gathering Sunday in a barangay where no fewer than a hundred perished in bloody rebel-military clashes in recent years.The activity in Barangay Guinanta in Al-Barka town in Basilan, a joint initiative of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the present administration of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and local peace advocacy groups, was meant to disseminate the intricacies of the BOL.The BOL shall be subjected to a plebiscite in the autonomous region on January 21, an exercise that would seal its fate.The Commi