BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

COTABATO CITY --- Top security officials were elated with the outcome of the joint military-police security operations in the Bangsamoro region and in central Mindanao during the May 14 elections.

Brig. Gen. Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region said Saturday there was no reported case of failure of election in any of the more than 100 towns in BARMM.

COTABATO CITY --- The former first and third highest officials of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao have been elected congressional representatives in their respective provinces.

Employees of the Bangsamoro government were elated with the election of former ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and Speaker Ronnie Sinsuat of ARMM’s deactivated 24-member Regional Assembly, as congressmen in Basilan and in the first district of Maguindanao, respectively.

BASILAN --- Officials are expecting the completion by June 2019 of a foreign-styled 30-meter bridge on a stretch of a vital overland artery connecting Lantawan town to Isabela City.

The Waagner Biro Austrian patterned bridge that the office of Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman is presently constructing in the Kumalarang-Balawatin area in Isabela City costs P30 million.

The provincial government is expecting a big improvement in the mobility of farmers and traders in the towns of Lantawan and Isabela City once the bridge project is complete.

COTABATO CITY – Datu Abul Khayr Dangcal Alonto, the first Muslim head of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), passed away at 10 p.m. Thursday while in confinement for lung and heart complications in hospital. He was 74.

Immediate relatives broke reports about Alonto’s demise at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute in Quezon City through Facebook pages, where they earlier confirmed news about his confinement condition.

COTABATO CITY – Datu Abul Khayr Dangcal Alonto, the first Muslim head of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), passed away at 10 p.m. Thursday while in confinement for lung and heart complications in hospital. He was 74.

Immediate relatives broke reports about Alonto’s demise at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute in Quezon City through Facebook pages, where they earlier confirmed news about his confinement condition.

BULUAN, Maguindanao - No fewer than 20,000 registered voters from across Maguindanao joined the sortie of administration senatorial candidates in this provincial capital Thursday.

Administration candidates, among them Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, Francis Tolentino, Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, Christopher “Bong” Go and Sajid “Dong” Mangudadatu took turns urging during the event Maguindanao’s Muslim, Christian and Lumad residents to vote for Freddie Mangudadatu, the favored candidate of President Rodrigo Duterte for governor of Maguindanao.

COTABATO CITY --- Muslims in the country and across the globe will start on Monday the month-long Ramadhan season where they fast from dawn to dusk for one lunar cycle as a religious obligation.

Sheik Abu Huraira Udasan, grand mufti (preacher) of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Sunday Ramadhan will officially start on May 6.

MAGUINDANAO --- The police arrested on Saturday four suspected “killers-for-hire” implicated in at least 16 seemingly election-related murders in recent weeks.

The relatives Teddy, Albehi, and Siong, all surnamed Biang, and Morsid Samal, also all wanted for trafficking of shabu, are now in the custody of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

COTABATO CITY - Friends of Archad Ayao of the Bangsamoro Commission on Human Rights are certain he was the target of the gunmen who killed him and companion Pio Orteza in an ambush here Wednesday.

The 28-year-old Ayao and Orteza, 42, who were together on a motorcycle when they were attacked by pistol-wielding suspects while motoring through the Ramon Rabago Avenue here, both died from bullet wounds.

Friends and relatives are convinced that Ayao, an investigator in BARMM’s regional CHR, was the target of the culprits.

LANAO DEL SUR --- Police agents shot dead Wednesday a murder suspect reportedly remitting proceeds of his large-scale drug trafficking activities to the Maute terror group, officials said Friday.

Personnel of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office were to entrap Mamintal Manan in a drug sting in Barangay Pugaan in Ditsaan Ramain town but neutralized him instead when he opened fire with a KG9 machine pistol while evading arrest.