MINDANAO CROSS (12 August) -- The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have both assured that the spate of violent incidents in Central Mindanao, including Monday’s deadly roadside bombing in Cotabato City, will not affect the on-going GPH-MILF peace talks.

 

 The MILF had condemned the car bomb explosion along Sinsuat Avenue, branding it a total disrespect for life and an act of terror.


Ghadzali Jaafar, the MILF’s vice-chairman for political affairs, said the setting of a bomb-laden car to kill and maim was an act of people who do not have religion.


The recent bombings in two Mindanao cities won't affect the yet-to-be concluded peace talks between the government and the MILF, according to government chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer.


Coronel-Ferrer, in an emailed statement, said the bombing incidents were an insult to the people of Mindanao’s right to personal and collective well-being and security.


The chairman of the largest and most active faction in the Moro National Liberation Front, former Cotabato City Vice-Mayor Muslimin Sema, who was performing the umrah hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia when the bombing rocked the city, told reporters via text message that atrocity was a cowardly, but devastating act, and that the authorities and the public should cooperate in investigating on the incident.


Sema said he and the MNLF is one with all groups that have condemned the attack.


He said the culprits behind the explosions showed "utter disregard" to civilians as they targeted places that seemed to indicate a goal to inflict maximum casualties.


‘Steadfast’


"It is very clear that these criminals have no place in the nation’s aspirations to take violence away from our politics, to build peace and attain justice and development," said Coronel-Ferrer.


The government chief negotiator said the two parties remain "steadfast" in pursuing the peace deal.


"Bombings and other inhumane acts have not softened our resolve to continue to work for non-violence, peace and development in these areas that have suffered far too long from hostilities. The peace process remains on track," she said.


On July 27, a car bomb exploded in Cagayan de Oro City, killing at least eight people.


At least eight more people were killed while about 30 others were injured when another explosion rocked Cotabato City.


The latest explosion occurred after the United States issued a global alert against the Al Qaeda. But President Benigno Aquino III said he has not seen any indicator that the bombing incidents are linked to the terror group.


But he said there are groups who want to derail the ongoing peace process.


Vigilance sought


Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Mujiv Hataman, chairman of the ARMM’s Peace and Order Council, also condemned the bombing in Cotabato City.


Hataman has also called on the public to be vigilant following the string of bomb attacks.


“We appeal to the public to remain calm and to be more vigilant amidst the sequence of bombings we have witnessed in the last 10 days. We call on authorities to step up efforts to keep our communities safe from threats of indiscriminate and senseless attacks,” he said.


A member of the ARMM’s 24-seat Regional Legislative Assembly, Maguindanao Second District Assemblyman Khadafy Mangudadatu, and his older sibling, Governor Esmael Mangudadatu, also both condemned the attack.


“This is the time for us to unite, hold each others’ hands in helping authorities solve this heinous crime, while we reach out to the families of those who perished to make them feel we share with their feeling of loss and grief,” Governor Mangudadatu said.


Mangudadatu said he had tasked the Maguindanao Provincial Police director, Senior Superintendent Rudelio Jocson, to help gather valuable information that may have value to the ongoing effort of the Cotabato City police in determining who could have perpetrated the bombing.


Mangudadatu said while Cotabato City is under Administrative Region 12, it is inside Maguindanao and that the two areas share common socio-economic interests.


The spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, Col. Dickson Hermoso, and Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac, a senior official of the ARMM Police Office, both assured of the police and military’s support to efforts of the Cotabato City police to solve the bombing and prosecute the culprits.


Hermoso and Pintac, who spoke to reporters during the ARMM’s weekly Tapatan program at the Office of the Regional Governor, however, said it is only through security around Cotabato City, which is under the Regional Police Office 12 based in General Santos City, and strong intelligence cooperation, that the 6th ID and the police command in the autonomous region can help.


“We never lower our guard. Still we count so much on the support of the public in addressing this kind of security threats and constraints,” Hermoso said. -- John Unson/Mindanao Cross