Jolo bombing victims get financial aid

COTABATO CITY — The families of five people killed in last week’s bombing in Jolo, Sulu received financial assistance from the executive department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) the other day.

The assistance, however, was not enough to appease them since the perpetrators are still at large.

ARMM Social Welfare Secretary Hadja Ruby Sahali personally turned over P10,000 to each of the families of the five fatalities.

Sahali said the 27 people wounded in the bombing each got P2,000 in cash assistance from the office of ARMM Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan.

"Most of the victims are confined at the Sulu Provincial Hospital, apparently harboring hatred against the people responsible for the bombing," Sahali said.

The victims were inside a cooperative grocery store in downtown Jolo, capital of Sulu, when a powerful explosion ripped through the establishment.

Sahali said Ampatuan has tasked Senior Superintendent Akmad Mamalinta, ARMM police director, to personally oversee the investigation into the bombing.

Talk has been circulating in Sulu that a group of Abu Sayyaf members led by Isnin Sahiron, son of Radulan Sahiron alias Commander Putol, was responsible for the attack.

Mamalinta earlier said several establishments in Jolo, including the bombed-out grocery store, had received extortion letters from the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf.

Sahali said the relatives of the slain shoppers are raging with anger, incensed by the reality that the bombers are still scot-free.

"I relayed to them the appeal of Gov. Ampatuan not to take the law into their hands and instead give the police enough time to file criminal charges against the (perpetrators)," Sahali told The STAR via mobile phone from Jolo.