Local News

KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Citing reports from the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO), police here tagged the liquidation squad of the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) Front 53 as behind the killing this Sunday of a village official. Supt. Leo Ajero, city police director, said based on the SOCO reports, the gun used to execute barangay kagawad Albert Domingo of Barangay Marbel was the same pistol in killing two years ago of a certain ‘Bantito’, a businessman from Arakan, North Cotabato. Both were ‘assets’ of the military.Domingo was a former member of the Army’s 39thInfantry Battalion.

COTABATO CITY -- Police detonated Monday night an improvised explosive device (IED) under
a major bridge here hours after a powerful IED exploded in Maguindanao town.

Senior Insp.
Rustum Pastolero, police station 3 chief, said the IED, composed of black power
with cut nails as shrapnel and a mobile phone as triggering device, was found
at about 8 p.m., two hours after a similar bomb went off in Talayan,
Maguindanao. It was
planted under the bridge, near the police and Army outpost at the approach of
Tamontaka Bridge, Pastolero said.

KORONADAL CITY – Unidentified gunmen shot dead Sunday afternoon a village
councilman of Barangay Lapu, Polomolok, South Cotabato.

Senior
Inspector Hernan Gabat, police chief of Polomolok PNP, identified the village
official as Norman Nilong, 46, and chair of the village council’s committee on
peace and order.

Gabat said
Nilong was talking to his uncle Lapu village chair Abdula Nilong at a waiting
shed in the borders of Barangays Lapu and Sulit, Polomolok when the two suspects
on board a motorbike arrived at 4 p.m.

COTABATO CITY --- Police authorities arrested here on separate occasions over the weekend four illegal drug personalities, authorities said. According to Sr. Insp. John Patrick Calinga, deputy chief of Police Station 4, first to be arrested was Jhomer Agko Musa, 40-years old and resident of Campo Muslim, Mother Barangay Bagua, this city. He was arrested after a village watchmantipped the local police of his activities at about 4 p.m. in Purok Meladek, Barangay Bagua Uno.

CARMEN, North Cotabato - Six persons have been killed and several others were injured when Moro families clashed over the weekend in what authorities believed was a clan war triggered by land dispute, the Army said today.Army Captain Alvin Macatangay, spokesperson of the Army's 602nd Infantry Brigade said efforts are underway to settle the dispute between the group of Jimmy Matalam led by his son Arlin Matalam against Cua family in Barangay Gen. Luna.

COTABATO CITY --- Unidentified gunmen ambushed Friday night a security vehicle of Vice Mayor Akmad Ampatuan of Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao, police and military said.No one from the security escorts were injured, according to Senior Insp.

NORTH COTABATO --- The police and military had cleared hinterland villages in Antipas, North Cotabato from occupation by rebels after 12 hours of operations that began Thursday night.Four bands of New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas arrived in Barangay Camutan in Antipas before dawn Thursday, looted houses and robbed villagers of money, farm animals and grains in their barns before ordering them to leave at gun point.Antipas Mayor Egidio Cadungon, chairperson of the municipal peace and order council, announced on Friday night that evacuees can start returning to the barrios government for

SULTAN KUDARAT --- The Marines rebels ambushed in Kalamansig town last week had unknowingly prevented an attempt to rob villagers of money and grains in their barns, officials said Friday.A neophyte serviceman, Private Albino Bahian III of the 2ndMarine Battalion, was killed in the bloody March 17 incident that also left nine of his companions wounded.They were attacked by New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas while on their way to Sitio Tinagdagan in Barangay Hinalaan in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat to validate the reported presence there of gunmen collecting protection money from residents.Co

KIDAPAWAN CITY – Fighting between government forces and communist rebels erupted Thursday night while the New Peoples Army (NPA) guerillas hostaged abut 400 persons in a remote North Cotabato village.Supt. Romeo Galgo, speaking for the regional police office for Region 12, said the fighting erupted at 7:15 p.m. while joint elements of 39th Infantry Battalion, Antipas PNP and North Cotabato went to the village of Camutan.

CAMP
SIONGCO, Maguindanao – The Army’s 6th Infantry Division
here has honored Wednesday afternoon a member of Marine Battalion Landing Team
(MBLT-2) who perished during an encounter between government forces and
communist guerillas in the coastal town of Sultan Kudarat Monday.
Maj.
Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr, Western Mindanao command chief, led the Joint Task
Force Central headed by Brig. Gen. Arnel dela Vega, also 6th ID
chief, in honoring Marine Private Albino B. Bahian III, 24, who died when