PNP, AFP fuse ranks for Cotabato City mall blast probe

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Police investigators and Army intelligence agents have joined forces to trace the identities and whereabouts of the culprits in the deadly blast outside a shopping mall here last Monday.

Chief Supt. Eliseo Rasco of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 12 announced yesterday the creation of Special Investigation Task Group Southseas comprising officers from the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and PRO-12.

Two were killed while 37 others were hurt when an improvised explosive device went off outside the Southseas Mall on Don Rufino Alonzo street.

Plainclothes agents from the regional police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in nearby Parang town in Maguindanao are also helping investigate the incident.

Rasco appealed to netizens to refrain from insinuating on Facebook posts that the bombing was meant to derail the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“We have to give investigators enough time to identify who were behind that bombing that we condemn strongly,” Rasco told reporters.

Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of 6th ID, said there is a possibility a local Islamic State-inspired group was responsible for the attack.

“Our intelligence units are helping the police look into the incident. We just have to patiently wait for the outcome of the investigation being initiated jointly by the police and the military,” Sobejana said.

In a statement Tuesday, presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. called for sobriety among the city’s Muslim, Christian and lumad inhabitants.

Galvez served as commander of 6th ID, covering the 37 barangays here and the provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato, from 2015 to early 2017.

He said the bombing was an isolated case and should not affect government-MILF efforts to forge peace. “Authorities are on top of the situation,” he said.

“Let’s continue working for peace in 2019 and in all the years to come,” Galvez said.

”Let us not allow this incident to discourage us to unite and act as one in our collective aspiration to achieve just and enduring peace, not just in Mindanao but in the whole country,” Galvez added. – With  Jose Rodel Clapano, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Alexis Romero, Sheila Crisostomo