Bangsamoro government condemns shooting of 2 social workers in Tawi-Tawi

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro government urged the police Wednesday to identify and prosecute gunmen who shot and wounded two COVID-19 frontliners in an attack Monday in Bongao town in Tawi-Tawi province.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said their chief minister, Ahod Ebrahim, wants an immediate closure to the incident that left social workers Niezel Ladjauddin Asakil and Kevin Pon badly wounded.

They are both employees of BARMM’s Ministry of Social Services and Development, or MSSD.

According to a statement by the MSSD, which also condemned the atack, Asakil and Pon were OIC Provincial Link for Tawi-Tawi and 4Ps Municipal Link, respectively. 

Initial police reports reaching the Bangsamoro regional capitol in Cotabato City stated that the duo were on their way home from an official assignment in Panglima Sugala town in Tawi-Tawi when they were attacked by gunmen somewhere in Barangay Lapid-Lapid in Bongao.

"Acts of lawlessness and violence directed against social workers are unacceptable, outrageous, and counterproductive to the pursuit of peace and justice in the Bangsamoro Region," the ministry also said.

Bongao is the capital town of Tawi-Tawi, a component province of BARMM.

Sinarimbo, chairperson of the inter-agency Regional Advisory Council of the Bangsamoro regional police office, said the MSSD is now attending to the needs of the injured Asakil and Pon.