The Bombing in Tacurong City

Bomb hits Maguindanao guv's convoy; 1 dead, 7 hurt

By Ben O. Tesiorna and Bong S. Sarmiento

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on August 16, 2011.

One person was confirmed dead while seven others were wounded in an explosion that struck Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu's convoy in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, Monday. Mangudadatu said he was shaken but unhurt in the bombing that occurred around 3:20 p.m. while his convoy of about 10 vehicles was cruising along the highway in Tacurong. He and his followers were heading to a restaurant to celebrate his birthday.

The bomb, placed inside an old and white Kia vehicle that was parked at the side of the road fronting the Cherubim Methodist Learning Center in Alunan Highway, exploded when a Toyota Fortuner passed near it.

"The blast was so powerful that I saw one of the cars in my convoy going up in flames," Mangudadatu said in a television interview. He said he was not injured because his vehicle is bullet-proof.

Seven of the passengers in other vehicles were, however, not as lucky as the governor. "May namatay sa kasamahan namin. May tatlong sugatan, yung isang board member ko, kasama ko (One was killed, while three were wounded, including the board member who's with me)," Mangudadatu said. The fatality was identified as Rocky Pareña, a tricycle driver.Wounded were Datu Rusman Sinsuat Sr., who is said to be a Provincial Board member and a relative of the Mangudadatus; his son Datu Rusman Sinsuat Jr.; Bebot Lauban Barabarang; Noble Abdulah; Mabang Antonio Algaba; Richard Sonza; and Robert Formacion.

"Si Rusman Sinsuat at saka yung anak nya naputulan ng paa (Among the victims were Rusman Sinsuat and his son, whose foot was severed by the blast)," the governor said. Sinsuat Sr. and his son were riding in the convoy's third car, which absorbed the main impact of the bomb. Mangudadatu said the bomb, composed of a 105-millimeter (mm) howitzer round, was just 10 to 15 meters away from their convoy when it exploded.

He said some journalists were in his convoy but it was not immediately clear if they were among the wounded.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda condemned the "attempted assassination" of Mangudadatu, adding investigators have identified the owner of the bomb-laden car and were checking other leads.

The Kia vehicle with plate number MDJ 274 reportedly belongs to Maureen Ella Macasindil of Datu Luho Village in Maa, Davao City.

Investigation showed that before Mangudadatu's convoy passed, a person coming from the car bomb ran across the highway before it exploded. Sultan Kudarat police, however, refused to confirm that the attack was an assassination attempt on the Maguindanao governor. "Actually, walang confirmation niyan, pero yan yung sabi-sabi nila. Wala tayong CCTV camera dito na ma-review na it was a convoy (It was not confirmed. We have no CCTV camera that could help us determine that it was a convoy)," said Provincial Police Director Danilo Peralta.

Chief Superintendent Benjardi Mantele, Central Mindanao police director, said that initial investigation showed the car was laden with an improvised explosive device. Allan Freno, information officer of the Tacurong local government, said the explosion occurred near the city's rotunda. Speaking near the blast site, Freno said the white Kia vehicle suffered heavy damages due to the impact of the explosion. A passing Toyota Fortuner was hit by the explosion, wounding its passengers, he added. Freno said that police and military bomb experts immediately rushed to the scene to conduct a deeper investigation.

Peralta said that investigators are still determining the "bomb's signature" that will give them the idea on who could be behind the attack, as no group immediately claimed responsibility for it.

Last Saturday, authorities recovered an improvised bomb fashioned from an 81-mm mortar shell at the Tacurong City public terminal. Police officials said the bomb was intended to be brought to General Santos City. Another bomb was also recovered along the highway of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao last Saturday. Early Friday morning, a bomb also exploded in Kidapawan City in North Cotabato, killing two, including the suspected bomber.

Peralta said that authorities are still determining whether the explosion on Monday and the recovery of the improvised explosive device on Saturday are connected. Mangudadatu, who took office after his relatives were among those slain in the country's worst political massacre in 2009, however, believes he was the target of the attack. He said Monday's blast was one more reason why the emergency declaration in Maguindanao, which empowers the military and police to take stronger actions to prevent violence, should not be lifted.

Many people associated with the main suspects still roam the province, Mangudadatu said.

"We know that many remnants of the suspects are still around, they're in the thousands," he added.

The emergency status in Maguindanao was declared following the attack also on the governor's convoy in November 2009 that left 57 people -- including Mangudadatu's wife, sisters, supporters and at least 31 journalists -- dead.

The group was attacked while they were on their way to register Mangudadatu's candidacy for governor, a position he later won by a landslide. The massacre was blamed on Mangudadatu's political rivals, the Ampatuans, a powerful clan in Maguindanao province. Members of the family, however, denied involvement in the killings and pointed to Muslim guerrillas as possible suspects. Sultan Kudarat and nearby Maguindanao are in a violent region that teems with Moro rebels and warlord clans with private armies.

Reaction:

            There’s nothing new.  It’s just that; peace is still not present in our country.

            The Maguindanao massacre that happened in the 23^rd of November 2009 was still very fresh in my memory. It was a hot issue on the TV news at that time. It was less than 6 months before the May 2010 elections. A part of it was the strong competition between the both parties which made them more eager to earn a position. And that’s obviously what happened there. As a woman myself, what they have done was very injustice.

            Just as last Monday, August 15, 2011, another incident happened in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, which was in the presence of Mangudadatu and his convoys. Although it was not that as horrible as what the 2009 issue but there was one man who died.

            After hearing that news, I immediately grabbed my phone and texted my friend. I asked him if he already heard the news. He replied, “Kailangan ko na talagang umuwi sa amin ngayon. Mapuputulan daw ng paa ang pinsan ko.” I felt a bit dismay and pity for him and his family. I explained it to him that it is a part of their politics life since most of them were politicians. But they are still humans that have a right to live and be happy and they just want to work for the country. Lives that were destroyed, sacrificed and wasted for nothing were very inhumane.

            As what Martin Luther King Jr. quoted, “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” We can attain peace in our country by simply starting achieving inner peace. Why wait for the time that we will all regret when we can even start now to correct all the things from the past?

The unexpected tragedy, again.

Editorial: Please, don't say this is the first time

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on June 30, 2011

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

PANGI river overflowed again, and this time, didn't just deluge the houses at NHA-Bangkal, but the subdivisions in Matina Pangi as well. The Pangi Bridge is impassable. This is not the first time this happened although the death toll is higher now, with 19 as of press time and counting.

Sometime 1997, Pangi River overflowed, deluged the houses at NHA-Bangkal and the house of then Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte along Taal Street in Royal Valley Subdivision. When the floodwaters subsided, his red Volkswagen Beetle was bobbing right in the middle of Talomo River, the other river that along with Pangi River, encloses NHA-Bangkal, Central Park Subdivision, and Royal Valley Subdivision all in Bangkal. The Pangi Bridge at that time also broke, isolating the residents of Matina Pangi. But Matina Pangi then was populated by a few farming families living in huts and wooden houses. Now, right along Pangi River in Matina Pangi, separated only by a concrete hollow block wall is a high-density, low-cost subdivision. The families living here, along with those at NHA-Bangkal, were the most affected.

The 1997 flashflood was also not the first time.

A decade earlier, we cannot quite recall when, but which remains a vague but fear-inducing memory of those stranded in the south, the waters of Pangi River reached way above the Matina Balusong bridge.

Nature has been telling us something, but we refused to listen. And now this: a flashflood that rampaged through sleeping families, killing mostly the very young, the elderly, and the unprepared.

How high-density subdivisions were ever given the permit to be built in this historically flooded area points us to official lack if not sheer absence of concern, and this has been how it is through the four decades that subdivisions have been flourishing in the city. Sometime in the 1970s, the Central Park Subdivision and Royal Valley Subdivision, in the 1990s, the NHA-Bangkal and all the other low-cost subdivision along the riverside of Matina Aplaya, and then the Samantha Homes in the early 200s. Another subdivision is being built up there beside Samantha now, downstream.

But this no longer surprises us.

Just yesterday, when we didn't even know that such a heavy rain would fall, Sun.Star Davao's editorial rued how we continue to destroy our waters and mountains every day. How we favor investments over environmental concerns, and brushing aside sustainable methods of development as too expensive. 

But what could be more expensive than the cost of lives? Is it enough that we hurt and cry at the sight of a dead toddler caked in mud? How much sadder should we all be before all of us, national and local government officials included, listen to what nature has been telling us all these years?

And thus, we list from what we wrote in yesterday's editorial, just to make sure that today's editorial is seen as but a continuation of our constant cry for the environment.

"If we continue with how we are allowing environment to be abused, and how we look at environmental protection, then what we will see next are our environment officials smiling and having their photos taken with the last of one other species, just before it is declared extinct. That's not a far-out thought considering that our environment department's idea of stopping illegal logging is impounding logs; an action that comes after the fact, when the trees are already dead and cut up." And may we add, that's not a far-out thought if our local officials see disaster management as having rubber boats and relief goods in stock, and a battalion of rescue workers all trained and ready to go, when the people are already floundering in flashfloods that can render even the best-trained rescuer and most recent rubber boat inutile with its rampaging currents. Unlike in typhoon-prone areas where heavy rainfall can be anticipated, in Davao City, it rains almost every night and floodwaters can rise in a split second. 

REACTION:

 

         Why do calamities exist? When will this happen?  Who are responsible for this? These are some of the many questions that most people have it in their minds.

 We were all aware about what happened last June 28, 2011. But this is not the first time in Davao’s history. That recent tragedy was very alarming to my parents. It already happened last 1997, when I was only 3 years old, but the only thing that differs is that the death toll now is higher compared to the past years. I asked my mother about how she felt last few years ago and how she felt with the recent tragedy.  She answered, “I was very frustrated at that time when you and your elder brother were left in our house. I never wished that to happen again. And now... I was surprised about the recent incident. I was scared that night and I humbly ask the Lord’s guidance. Thankfully, we were not affected but I felt pity for those who were victims of the flash flood.”

That night of June 28, 2011, I was happily sleeping for I love dark cold nights. But I did not expect that when I was having a good night sleep, there were many people struggling just to get out of their houses, save oneself and their families.  I was also surprised when I heard the news that many were killed especially the very young, the elderly, and the unprepared. Feeling pity, I and my family helped them because we know how it feels to be a victim.

We cannot blame somebody and we cannot also blame the rain. But rather, blame our own self for the reason that we are allowing our environment to be abused. We should not wait for the time that we will all be penalized for our bad acts. I know it is late already but we can prevent the “upcoming disasters” by doing simple acts. Such as following the rules implemented and by following/doing what is morally right.