Local News

COTABATO CITY --- More than 70 barangays in central Mindanao are flooded since Friday after the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta overflowed following torrential rains in mountain ranges around.

The most affected barangays are in interior areas in the adjoining towns of Pagalungan and Montawal in Maguindanao and in nearby Pikit and Kabacan in North Cotabato.

The four towns are dotted with swamps and crisscrossed by rivers that connect to the vast Liguasan Delta.

COTABATO CITY - The Cotabato Light and Power Company (Cotabato Light) has scheduled power interruption on Sunday, October 18, 2020 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon.

Affected areas are DOST and DEPED-BARMM offices inside the BARMM compound.

This is to relocate primary lines and poles in the area.

KORONADAL CITY – When two women quarrel over something or somebody, they usually exchanged harsh words at each other.

But when both women are armed since they are both police officers, they did not trade acrimonious words but bullets while separately driving luxury cars.

Luckily nobody was hurt in this case involving two policewomen, one assigned in South Cotabato and the other in Sultan Kudarat.

COTABATO CITY --- Anti-narcotics agents seized P5.3 million worth of shabu from a former mayor, an incumbent barangay councilor and a 63-year-old woman who fell in separate operations Friday.

The first to fall from the three stings laid by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency was Jaher Guiapal, arrested after selling P136,000 worth of shabu, or methamphetamine hydrochloride, to plainclothes PDEA operatives in the town proper of Buluan in Maguindanao. 

KORONADAL CITY - Balik byahe na ang Yellow Bus Lines Inc., sa lahat ng ruta nito sa buong Rehiyon XII simula sa araw ng Lunes, October 19, 2020.

Noong Sept. 5, sinuspende ng YBL ang operation mga pampasaherong bus nito sa lahat ng destination bilang bahagi ng kontribusyon ng kumpanya sa kampanya kontra Covid-19.

COTABATO CITY – Some PHP8 million worth of shabu was destroyed at a private incinerator facility in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao Thursday by personnel of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency – Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM).

Juvenal Azurin, PDEA-BARMM director, said the shabu, weighing 1,177 grams, were seized from various operations against illegal drug traffickers and peddlers during the past several months in the region.

COTABATO CITY  – A woman senior citizen was arrested after she sold to an undercover agent several sachets of suspected shabu during drug buy bust here Friday (Oct 16), an anti-narcotics official said.

Her arrest also led to the recovery of about 15 sachets of suspected meth with an estimated market value of P5.1 million and the boodle money composed of one original and photo-copied P1,000 bills, according to Director Juvenal Azurin of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM).

MAGUINDANAO ---- Gunmen shot dead three Moro volunteer COVID-19 frontliners in a daring attack in Buluan town late Thursday. 

The fatalities belonged to a local service-oriented group Kabalikat, actively supporting the anti-coronavirus containment efforts of the Buluan municipal disaster risk reduction and management council.

KIDAPAWAN CITY - Works at the municipal hall of Pagalungan in Maguindanao had been suspended as the town’s government center was under water, local officials said.

Pagalungan town Vice Mayor Abdilah G. Mamasabulod said Mayor Salik Mamasabulod has ordered the suspension of office works of all local government unit servants but require frontliners and disaster workers to report for work 24/7.

“This is to ensure that lives are saved and to cushion the impact of this natural calamity,” Vice Mayor Mamasabulod said in a radio interview.

COTABATO CITY --- Residents in North Cotabato province are panicking over frequent sightings since December of venomous King Cobras slithering through their farms, a number of people killed in attacks since. 

North Cotabato Gov. Nancy Catamco, chairperson of the provincial disaster risk reduction and management council, announced Tuesday that her office has allocated funds for the procurement of anti-venom injections for snakebite patients.