Maguindanao del Sur police detachment bombed

COTABATO CITY —A grenade blast ripped through the surroundings of a roadside police detachment in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao del Sur on Wednesday night, January 1, causing panic among villagers in houses around.

No one was killed or injured in the incident, according to officials from the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Captain Razul Pandulo, chief of the Pagalungan municipal police, told reporters on Thursday, January 2, that ordinance experts discovered fragments of an MK2 fragmentation grenade at the scene of the explosion.

Pandulo said the grenade, hurled from a distance, landed and went off near the entrance to the detachment of the 4th Mobile Platoon of the 2nd Police Mobile Force Company, located along a strategic stretch of a highway in the municipality.

 A Toyota Innova parked near the spot where the grenade exploded was damaged.

Another rusty vintage World War 2 era grenade, which failed to explode, was found at one side of the detachment and was immediately deactivated by police ordnance experts and a bomb disposal team from the Army’s 90th Infantry Battalion.

Text messages are spreading around in Pagalungan and nearby Pikit and Kabacan towns, both in Cotabato province, stating that men riding motorcycles together perpetrated the grenade attack. 

Police Brig. Gen Romeo Macapaz, director of PRO-BAR, told reporters that officials of the Pagalungan police force and local executives are cooperating in identifying the culprits.

The bombing was preceded by Tuesday night’s grenade blast in a carnival in Barangay Marbel in Matalam town in Cotabato, only about 20 kilometers from Pagalungan.

The explosion resulted in the death of a villager, Romel Presto Cabiso, and slightly injured five others.

Radio reports in Central Mindanao cities and provinces on Thursday stated that Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza and Matalam Vice Mayor Ralph Ryan Rafael had both provided the blast victims undergoing medication and the family of Cabiso initial essential support and assured to help facilitate his burial.