Local News

KIDAPAWAN CITY – Police anti-drug personnel shot dead in a shootout a suspected drug dealer during a search operation in M’lang, North Cotabato, before Monday, police reports said.Police identified the slain suspect as Lawrence Esteban of Barangay Dugong, M’lang.Reports from PNP-12 said Esteban refused to yield to raiding team when his house was searched and instead engaged them in a shootout.The suspect died on the spot due to several gunshot wounds, reports added.Esteban’s wife, however, denied the allegations that there was an exchange of fire while police conducted the search.She told

Reading 1 IS 49and1-6 Hear me, O coastlands,listen, O distant peoples.The LORD called me from birth,from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.He made of me a sharp-edged swordand concealed me in the shadow of his arm.He made me a polished arrow,in his quiver he hid me.You are my servant, he said to me,Israel, through whom I show my glory.Though I thought I had toiled in vain,and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,yet my reward is with the LORD,my recompense is with my God.For now the LORD has spokenwho formed me as his servant from the womb,that Jacob may be brought back to himand Is

MAGUINDANAO --- Three more members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered on Friday and pledged allegiance to the Philippine flag.One of them told reporters they decided to surrender and turn over their firearms to Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division after realizing that their group, based in central Mindanao’s Liguasan Delta, could be 6thID’s next target following an airstrike there two weeks ago that destroyed their makeshift bomb-making facility and killed nine, three of them foreign terrorists.

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao -- He may have endured the
aerial and ground assaults in the marsh for weeks and managed to survive but a
call from one of his child who is in school changes his mindset.

Roy Saidali
Maningkala, the unit head of the three members of Bangsamoro Freedom Fighters
who surrendered today, said he came into realization that he is fighting for
nonsense and out of principle anymore.

COTABATO CITY -- Maguindanao was rocked by five mild earthquakes Friday, affecting at least two towns, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).In a bulletin today, Phivolcs said the latest quake was traced in Ampatuan town which hit at 11:22 a.m. with a 2.3 magnitude.

GEN. SANTOS CITY --Police
operatives in South Cotabato led by Police
Senior Inspector Rafael B. Banggay Jr. together with the team from Tampakan
MPS, Brgy. Officials of Danlag, and
members of Tampakan Rescue Unit uprooted more or less 1,500 hills of fully grown marijuana plants with estimated value of P300, 000 in Sitio Bongsbang, Brgy
Danlag, Tampakan, South Cotabato on June 18.Police
operatives later burned the uprooted marijuana plants before the presence of
said local officials.

DATU BLAH SINSUAT, Maguindanao -- The local leaders of Datu Blah Sinsuat town of Maguindanao turned over Wednesday unlicensed firearms to military authorities.The turn over was held during the mass oath taking of the newly-elected Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials at the town’s municipal covered court.A total of 24 loose firearms were handed over to the military coming from the 13 barangays of the municipality as part of the Balik-Baril Program of the government.The event was graced by Maguindanao Governor Esmael Toto Mangudadatu, Joint Task Force Central Commander Brig.

KIDAPAWAN CITY– The Army in North Cotabato has quelled communist guerillas’ plans to attack one of its detachments located at a remote village in Tulunan, North Cotabato.Lt. Col.

KIDAPAWAN CITY
- Six personnel of 19th Infantry Battalion, including an Army lieutenant were
injured today in a roadside bomb in Magpet, North Cotabato.

The North
Cotabato police reported that the victims were returning to the provincial
capitol at past 1 p.m. when suspected communist rebels set off a roadside bomb, believed to be a landmine, in a dirt road in Barangay Binay, Magpet.

COTABATO CITY– President Rodrigo Duterte has instructed government prosecutors to do their best to obtain partial judgment against some of the accused in the infamous 2009 Maguindanao Massacre within the year.This was disclosed by Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque during a press conference here Tuesday, following the graduation rites of some 2,000 students of the Cotabato City State Polytechnic College where he was guest speaker.