Maranao youth stage rally to condemn attack on ABS-CBN news crew  

ILIGAN CITY, Philippines — More than a hundred Maranao youth activists on Monday afternoon staged a lightning rally in Marawi City’s Banggolo District where a television news crew was ambushed on Saturday. “This is to show our disgust and condemnation of the attack,” said Drieza Lininding of the Bangsamoro National Movement for Peace and Development. The activists distributed flyers to passersby and pedestrians that bore messages urging the Maranao people to condemn and not tolerate the attack. “Media (practitioners are) our friends, not our enemy,” read one flyer and banner. “Let us prove to the international community that we are media-friendly and that they are safe here,” Lininding urged the Maranaos. “We may not agree with how media practitioners depict our struggle for self-determination and our fight for the Bangsamoro Basic Law, but the media in northern Mindanao have been kind and fair with us,” Lininding explained. The ABS-CBN news crew escaped unscathed from the ambush but they suffered psychological trauma. They were following up on the bombing of a transmission tower in Ramain, Lanao del Sur, on Dec. 24 when motorcycle-riding men followed them and fired shots at them in Marawi. Local journalists who have been covering Lanao del Sur are bewildered by the attack on the news crew. Despite the unstable security situation in Lanao del Sur, attacks on media men in the province are rare.  SFM