“Separate police and military reports showed that wrapped IED parts abandoned near river banks as early as April is an indication that a group is out to sow terror and chaos in the city and alertness is up to forestall that plan,” Lt. Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, told reporters Thursday.
Cotabato, a delta traversed and surrounded by Rio Grande tributaries, has become a favorite entry and exit points of lawless elements, said the city police director, Senior Supt. Rolen Balquin.
People behind bombing, assassinations and kidnap-for-ransom activities have been thriving by taking the treacherous swamp and water terrain to elude pursuing troops. This opened the way for the deployment of Marine soldiers that substantially contained these security threats.
Hermoso, however, said that the Marine battalion pullout in March to attend to the kidnapping problem in the island provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, “appeared to have opened the door for lawless groups to resurface with these explosive finds.”
He assured though that the coming in of the Army’s 5th Special Force Battalion under Lt. Col. Noly Mapili to replace the Philippine Marines would equally fill-up the vacuum by occupying all strategic Marine outposts and choke points.
Mapili said like the Marine soldiers, his troops have been equally trained in water navigation and other hazardous terrain-pursuit in running after criminal elements.
Designated as operations chief of the Kampilan Task Group, a team of military and police operatives, Mapili has appealed for civilian cooperation and vigilance by reporting suspicious-looking personalities or those involved in the commission of crimes in their localities.
Hermoso said Monday’s three interval explosions in vacant lots along the national highway in Pikit, North Cotabato were just meant to cause panic and anxiety. But the powerful blast the following day in Datu Unsay, Maguindanao, not only damaged a concrete bridge, but left two Army soldiers dead and several others wounded while the victims belonging to the First Mechanized Infantry Brigade were on a two-vehicle convoy on their way to the 6th ID headquarters at Datu Odin Sinsuat town.
He said the explosion happened while Department of Public Works and Highways personnel were doing finishing touches of the newly constructed bridge at Barangay Meta.
The workers were invited for questioning, but were later released, said Hermoso of the bomb attack that almost killed the brigade commander, Col. Gener Del Rosario.
While authorities suspected the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters to be retaliating to the staging of military law enforcement operations, Hermoso said authorities have not identified the group behind the failed entry here of IED-making parts.
Kunihiro Nakasone, senior country representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, who was here Wednesday, had to seek police security advice after learning of the bombings.
Assured of safety by city deputy police director, Supt. Ronaldo Palomo, the Nakasone-led JICA team continued with its inspection tripto JICA-funded farm-to-market roads and other infrastructure projects in Maguindanao.
Japan is one of the major players pushing for a final peace deal between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.