189 more cops for frontline duties in Bangsamoro region

COTABATO CITY --- The new 189 personnel of the Bangsamoro regional police are to help in the government’s war on coronavirus in five southern provinces.

Brig. Gen. Manuel Abu, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said Monday the 189 new members of PRO-BAR completed last week the basic recruitment course in Camp SK Pendatun.

The camp, regional command center of PRO-BAR, is located in the seaside Parang town in the first district of Maguindanao province.

Abu said the new police personnel shall partly support the anti-coronavirus campaign of the regional government.

Abu and lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, who is Bangsamoro local government minister, are cooperating in complementing the regional government’s anti-COVID-19 efforts in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces.

The 189 new PRO-BAR members underwent a 24-week training at Camp SK Pendatun that culminated with a simple rite on Friday.

Abu said the training focused on police science, administration, combat operation and tactics essential to their law-enforcement functions.

“They have also been oriented on anti-pandemic frontline missions,” Abu said.

Sinarimbo, chairperson of PRO-BAR’s multi-sector Regional Advisory Council, said Monday the Bangsamoro government is grateful to the regional police for helping address the COVID-19 problem besetting the region.

“The police units in the Bangsamoro region are strong partners of the regional government in its war on COVID-19," Sinarimbo said.

A number of PRO-BAR personnel have, in recent weeks, been sick of COVID-19, contracted while performing frontline duties.

The PRO-BAR is an active supporter of the Bangsamoro region’s Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or READI contingent operating under Sinarimbo’s ministerial control.

The READI is one of the essential regional outfits involved in the Bangsamoro government’s continuing anti-COVID-19 initiatives.