Probers still clueless on Midsayap grenade attack

NORTH COTABATO --- Orlando Cardinal Quevedo on Monday condemned the grenade attack late Saturday in Midsayap town and called on Catholics to pray for the 16 people hurt in the incident. As chief shepherd of the (Catholic) flock my heart reaches out with love and compassion to our parishioners wounded in the bombing outside the Church and Shrine of Senior Sto. Nino (in Midsayap), Quevedo said in a written statement emailed on Monday to selected media outfits.Muslim leaders in central Mindanao’s adjoining Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces earlier condemned the bombing and urged the police to identify the culprits and file airtight cases against them.Witnesses said two men perpetrated the bombing, targeting a police vehicle parked near the Santo Niño church at the town center of Midsayap in the first district of North Cotabato.They told reporters one of the two men, clad in what looked like a brown shirt with black stripes, hurled the grenade at the police pick-up truck and scampered away as the explosive went off.The explosion caused panic among worshipers in the nearby church, where a traditional Christmas nativity mass was being led by Fr. Jay Virador of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation.One of the 16 people injured in the blast was a policeman,SPO4 Johnny Caballero, who sustained shrapnel wounds in the lower torso.Supt. Bernard Tayong, chief of the Midsayap municipal police, said there is a possibility that local drug syndicates dislodged from the municipality by recent government anti-narcotics operations were responsible for the attack.Tayong emphasized, however, that local investigators are still trying their best to identify the culprits.He said they are also not discounting the possibility that the grenade attack was a handiwork of religious extremists.Tayong appealed to the public to give probers enough time to accomplish their task of putting closure to the case.The police and agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency recently drove away in a series of operations two wanted drug traffickers in Midsayap, Renz Tukuran and Mokz Masgal, who led big groups of heavily armed men.Some 20 followers of Tukuran and Masgal were arrested in the crackdown, now being prosecuted for possession of military-type assault rifles, shoulder-fire grenade launchers and methamphetamine hydrochloride, most known as shabu. Tukuran and Masgal, known for their links with the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, managed to escape when lawmen and soldiers raided their hideouts in remote barangays in Midsayap.The BIFF has also been attacking hapless Visayan peasant communities in the municipality since 2011.In of these attacks, BIFF bandits used public teachers as human shields while fleeing from the scene to prevent pursuing soldiers from closing in.BIFF gunmen also killed seven off duty soldiers in one attack after another in the municipality in the past 12 months.The explosion near the Santo Niño church late Saturday came after policemen and soldiers arrested in Barira town in Maguindanao five members of the Maute terror group, one of them a former policeman named Jessy Original.The five extremists were intercepted in Barangay Nabalawag in Barira, Maguindanao while searching for a place where to hide six vehicles they reportedly planned to rig with improvised explosive devices.