BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

COTABATO CITY -- Officials on Tuesday urged President Rodrigo Duterte to extend the martial law in Mindanao not just for one more year but until his term ends in 2022.Members of the Lamitan City council said they do not oppose an extension of the martial in Mindanao that the President declared immediately after the May 23, 2017 siege of Marawi City by combined Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists.One of them, the outspoken councilor Joaquin Puri, Jr., said Tuesday it is hypocrisy for lawmakers residing outside of Mindanao to oppose an extension of the martial that most residents in the region

COTABATO CITY – Hundreds of thousands of Bangsamoro from across Mindanao joined
Moro leaders in asking every Muslim to support the ratification of Bangsamoro
Organic Law (BOL).

Leaders also
appealed for public support from all sectors for this might be the last chance
to attain peace in Muslim Mindanao.

COTABATO CITY - Some 200,000 supporters of the Bangsamoro Organic Law joined the symbolic launching here Monday of the campaign for its ratification via a plebiscite on January 21, 2019.The event was held inside the 32-hectare regional capitol here of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.It was capped off with separate endorsements of the BOL by the figurehead of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Hadji Murad Ebrahim, Muhaquer Iqbal of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission and Gov.

MAGUINDANAO - A gunman shot dead Wednesday while inside a passenger van a lawyer campaigning for the ratification via a plebiscite on January 21 of the Bangsamoro Organic Law.Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said the 48-year-old Nasser Laban died instantly from bullet wounds in the head.His killer, who was armed with a pistol, was also a passenger in the same vehicle, en route to Cotabato City from Sultan Kudarat province.The suspect first asked the driver of the van to pull over while at a secluded stretch of the high

MAGUINDANAO --- Authorities have tightened security in politically troubled towns following the ambush on Wednesday of three candidates for local elective positions in Parang, Maguindanao.The political allies Khadafy Pendi, Amelia Abo and Hammy Manabilang were in a car en route to Cotabato City when gunmen opened fire while their driver was maneuvering through a busy stretch of a highway in Marhaban area in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.The incident prompted Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Major Gen.

MAGUINDANAO --- One of three candidates for local posts riding a car together was wounded in an ambush in Sultan Kudarat town Wednesday.Chief Supt.

AMPATUAN,
Maguindanao – The military has found an encampment of Bangsamoro Islamic
Freedom Fighters (BIFF) near the site of Maguinanao massacre in Maguindanao
Wednesday morning.

It was
already abandoned, the rebels are no longer here, Army 1Lt. Juvylito Lisondra,
commander of the 21st Mechanized Company who led the clearing
team.

The area is
difficult for the Army to penetrate and it has easy way out for the rebels
going to mountains, Lisondra said.

COTABATO CITY - Officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are confident the incoming leaders of the Bangsamoro political entity will maximize efforts of bringing out the best among students under their watch.The ARMM shall be replaced with the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM, if the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the enabling measure for such switch, gets ratified via a plebiscite on January 21, 2019.Lawyer Rasol Mitmug, Jr., regional secretary of DepEd-ARMM, said Friday the upcoming BARMM outfit will surely be proud of how students in the present autonomous r

COTABATO CITY -- Civilian and military medics have served 17,245 poor Moro residents in 29 Maguindanao towns in a series of humanitarian outreach missions that started early November.The project, to cover all of Maguindanao’s 36 towns, is a joint initiative of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao-Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team, or ARMM-HEART, and the Army’s 6thInfantry Division.The HEART is ARMM’s regional disaster and calamity reaction contingent operating under the office of the region’s chief executive, Gov.

COTABATO CITY --- More than 40 political leaders in Sulu have pledged support to the Bangsamoro Organic Law, disproving claims that residents there are rabidly against it.Key leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front said Tuesday among the signatories to the document were Benjamin Loong, a former regional vice governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and two erstwhile Sulu provincial vice governors -- Abdel Anni and Munib Estino.Incumbent mayors of five large towns, Indanan, Talipao, Luuk, Estino and Tongkil, and Sulu Rep.