Patay ang isang magsasakang Moro at sugatan naman ang kanyang kabiyak at 13-buwan na anak ng ratratin ng assault rifles ng isang grupo ang kanilang bahay sa Radjah Buayan, Maguindanao del Sur hatinggabi nitong Linggo.

Tama ng bala sa iba’t-ibang parte ng kanyang katawan ang ikinamatay ng ama ng tahanan na si Said Sakilan Bansil sanhi ng naturang pamamaril.

Ang kanyang sugatang maybahay at anak na babae ay agad na dinala ng mga emergency responders sa isang hospital upang malapatan ng lunas.

Sa mga hiwalay na ulat nitong Lunes ng mga officials ng Radjah Buayan Municipal Police Station at ng local executives sa naturang bayan, mabilis na tumakas ang mga kalalakihang bumaril sa barong-barong ng mga biktima gamit mga assault rifles.

Ayon kay Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director ng Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, nagtutulungan ang mga imbestigador mula sa Radjah Buayan municipal police, mga local executives at mga traditional Moro leaders sa pagkilala sa mga responsable sa naturang krimen.

Ayon kay De Guzman, kanilang sasampahan agad ng kaukulang mga kaso ang mga salarin kung ganap na silang makikilala ng mga imbestigador at mga intelligence agents ng mga units ng PRO-BAR sa Maguindanao del Sur. (April 6, 2026) 

Combatants of the 6th Marine Battalion promptly drove away, using firepower, a group armed with assault rifles that attacked two men gathering firewood at the forested Timako Hill in Barangay Kalanganan 2 in Cotabato City on Saturday afternoon, April 4.

It was residents and Moro community leaders in Barangay Kalanganan 2, supporting the joint law-enforcement efforts of Mayor Bruce Matabalao and the Cotabato City Police Office, who led the Marines to the exact location of the gunmen who opened fire at Asraf Talusan Guialal, 33, and his 26-year-old relative, Zaldy Ali Guialal, enabling them to drive away the duo’s attackers after a brief exchange of gunfire.

The Guialals, then gathering fallen dried tree branches at the Timako Hill near Cotabato City’s west coast, survived the attack unscathed.

Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City police, said the gunmen who shot them ran away when they sensed that more Marines, backed by armoured combat vehicles, were closing in.

Residents had told reporters that the gunmen who harassed the two firewood gatherers could have come from a beachfront area west of the Timako Hill. They assured to help Bongcayao and Matabalao identify the culprits for prosecution.

Bongcayao said Marine combatants and policemen found in the scene of the encounter a chainsaw, five magazines of 5.56 M16 assault rifles, 100 rounds of 5.56 millimeter ammunition and other personal belongings the the armed men left as they scampered away. (April 5, 2026)

Agaw-buhay ngayon sa ospital ang isang apat na taong gulang na bata matapos umano’y malupit na bugbugin ng sariling amain sa loob mismo ng kanilang bahay sa Barangay Mampang kahapon ng hapon. April 3

Nahaharap sa mahabang pagkakakulong ang 28-anyos na suspek, matapos ang umano’y “disiplina” na nauwi sa halos pagkamatay ng bata na anak ng kaniyang kinakasama.

Agad namang inaresto ng mga pulis ang suspek at kasalukuyang nakapiit sa Zamboanga City Police Office Station 12 detention cell.

Prayoridad ngayon ng pulisya ang kaligtasan ng bata habang inihahanda ang matibay na ebidensya para sa pagsasampa ng kaso laban sa suspek.

Nakaalalay na rin ang City Social Welfare and Development Office sa pamilya ng biktima.

Mahaharap ang suspek sa kasong paglabag sa RA 7610 o Child Abuse at Frustrated Infanticide. 

Isang stepfather ang nakadetine na, nahaharap na sa kaukulang mga kaso, sanhi ng kanyang panggugulpi ng 4-anyos na stepson sa Barangay Mampang sa Zamboanga City nitong Biyernes.

Naka-confine na sa isang hospital ang stepson ni Jay-ar Habibon, nasa maselang kalagayan.

Nakapiit na sa isang detention facility ng Zamboanga City Police Office si Habibon, magkatuwang na sasampahan ng mga kamag-anak ng batang kanyang nagulpi at ng mga barangay officials sa Irawan ng paglabag sa Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, serious physical injuries at frustrated infanticide.

Ayon sa mga barangay officials at mga imbestigador mula sa isang police station na sakop ang Barangay Mampang, posibleng lango sa droga kaya napagdiskitahan ni Habibon ang bata at nagulpi.

Pinagsasampal ng malakas at binalibag ni Habibon ang bata, ayon sa mga saksi. Agad naman itong isinugod ng mga barangay officials sa isang hospital upang malapatan ng lunas.

Ginulpi din niya ang ina ng bata kaya ito nagtamo din ng mga sugat at pasa sa katawan. (April 4, 2026) 

The police and military shall expand cooperation in maintaining law and order in the troubled Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao del Sur and nearby areas beset with security concerns that municipal officials can hardly address despite the powers vested on them by the Local Government Code.

The chief of the Philippine National Police, Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez, Jr., and Army Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the Western Mindanao Command, together presided over a security conference in Shariff Aguak on Thursday, April 2, where they agreed to intensify the joint PNP-military peacekeeping thrusts in Maguindanao del Sur to prevent a repeat of the deadly incidents in its municipalities in recent weeks.

Five policemen were killed while three others were wounded in an ambush on Saturday night near the Camp Akilan in Shariff Aguak, where the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office (MSPPO) is located.

Two powerful explosions rocked two areas in the nearby Radja Buayan town on Wednesday, causing panic among villagers.

The newly-installed Maguindanao del Sur police director, Col. Michael John Mangahis, Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office, Brig. Gen Edgar Catu of the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade and his superior, Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, who is at the helm of 6th Infantry Division, were also present in Thursday’s conference at the provincial police headquarters in Camp Akilan in Shariff Aguak.

Shariff Aguak is one of 24 towns in the hostile Maguindanao del Sur province in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Cagara, who is overseeing the 6th ID’s anti-terror Joint Task Force Central, and Catu, who, as commander of the 601st Infantry Brigade, has jurisdiction over Army units in Maguindanao del Sur, separately assured Nartatez and De Guzman then of their support to the law-enforcement activities of all police units in the province.

Talks and text messages have been spreading around since Monday, insinuating that remnants of the long defunct Dawlah Islamiya were responsible in Saturday night’s ambush of policemen at a stretch of a highway connecting the town center of Shariff Aguak and the Camp Akilan.

The attack, which left five patrolmen from the 2nd Provincial Mobile Force Company of the MSPPO dead, was reportedly meant to stir an impression that the now non-functional Dawlah Islamiya is still capable of perpetrating acts of terror anywhere in Maguindanao del Sur and in nearby provinces.

Units of PRO-BAR and 6th ID, local officials, Moro datus and leaders of the Islamic religious community in BARMM had worked out, via backchannel dialogues, the surrender of almost 2,000 members of the allies Dawlah Islamiya and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in the past four years, all of them reintroduced to mainstream society. (PhilStar, April 3, 2026, JFU)

The team of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Tawi-Tawi had received two citations for having entrapped in recent months elusive local and foreign dealers together circulating shabu in communities under their jurisdiction.

Among those reportedly arrested in separate entrapment operations in different towns by the provincial team in Tawi-Tawi of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao were Chinese nationals, who, along with their Filipino accomplices, are now detained, being prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Local officials had confirmed that the foreigners entrapped by PDEA-BARMM agents in Tawi-Tawi are linked to suppliers of dried marijuana from islands in the Indonesian seas, close to the territorial waters of Tawi-Tawi, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro region.

Radio reports on Friday, April 3, in cities and provinces in the Bangsamoro region stated that Vice Gov. Al-syed Sali, the presiding chairperson of the Tawi-Tawi Sangguniang Panlalawigan, personally handed over last Wednesday to the team leader of the PDEA-BARMM in their province, Abraham Kalim, a citation plaque in appreciation of the agency’s accomplishments in its provincial anti-narcotics campaign.

Sali said they are grateful to the PDEA-BARMM team in Tawi-Tawi and their regional director, Edgar Jubay, who is based in Cotabato City, for their provincial operation accomplishments achieved with the support of units in the province of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, under its director, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, and Army Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the military’s Western Mindanao Command.

Kalim had received a separate citation plaque for their team from Tawi-Tawi’s provincial executives, under Gov. Ysmael Sali, during the Gabi ng Parangal event in Bongao town, the provincial capital, on Tuesday night.

The governor of Tawi-Tawi is the presiding chairperson of their multi-sector provincial peace and order council, whose members were also instrumental in the arrest of shabu and marijuana traffickers during entrapment operations by PDEA-BARMM agents in the province in recent months. (PhilStar, April 3, 2026, JFU)

Bangsamoro officials were elated with the high turnout of the registration of voters in the autonomous region in preparation for the first ever September 14, 2026 parliamentary elections in the five provinces and three cities in its core territory.

Radio reports on Thursday, April 2, stated that 160,361 more residents in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao had been included in the list of voters of the Commission on Elections during registration activities from February 9 to March 31.

President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. signed last month the Republic Act 12317 that set the first BARMM parliamentary elections to September 14, supposedly held last March 30 as scheduled by the Bangsamoro regional parliament.

Of the 160,361 newly-listed voters in BARMM, 78,478 are women, according to reports on Thursday morning by radio stations in this city and in nearby Central Mindanao provinces.

Ranking officials of three regional parties, Basilan Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Bangsamoro People’s Party, Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr of the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, and the region’s labor and employment minister, Muslimin Sema, of the Bangsamoro Party, separately told reporters on Thursday that they are glad having more voters to participate in the September 14 elections.

“That is so essential in promoting our concept of participatory governance, voters choosing freely whom they want to represent them in the Bangsamoro regional parliament,” said Hataman, who had served as regional governor of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for two consecutive terms. He is also the figurehead of the Basilan Unity Party, whose members are scattered across the 11 towns and two cities in their island province.

The ARMM, which operated for 27 years, was replaced with a more empowered BARMM in 2019. The Bangsamoro region covers the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where its regional capitol is located.

“This early we shall start engaging in activities that can help ensure peaceful and clean parliamentary elections in Basilan on September 14,” said Hataman, presiding chairperson of the multi-sector Basilan Provincial Peace and Order Council.

Sema, chairman of the central committee of the Moro National Liberation Front and one of the founders of their Bangsamoro Party, more known in BARMM as the “Bapa Party,” said he and all the members of the front in the provinces and cities in the Bangsamoro region shall also willingly help the Comelec ensure a safe and honest regional electoral exercise on September 14.

The MNLF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which have separate peace accords with the national government, both have incumbent representatives, appointed by President Marcos, to the 80-seat BARMM parliament.

“Its time for us to have parliament members who have a mandate from voters,” Sema said.

Members of the BARMM parliament, among them the lawyers Naguib Sinarimbo, Ishak Mastura and Jet Lim and the physician ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., who is also concurrently serving as regional health minister, separately informed reporters on Thursday that they are glad with the President’s having set the regional polls on September 14 via the Republic Act Republic Act 12317.

Sinarimbo, who was BARMM’s local government minister prior to his appointment last year as member of the regional parliament by President Marcos, said the September 14 elections will enable voters to freely elect candidates they want to represent their districts to the region’s law-making body.

“We promise to do our best to guard, in all legal ways, the integrity of this upcoming electoral exercise,” Sinarimbo said. (PhilStar, April 3, 2026, JFU) 

A baby was safely delivered aboard a Lite Ferry vessel while it was traveling from Dumaguete to Dipolog in the early morning of December 21, 2025. At around 4:00 a.m., a 30-year-old woman from Zamboanga Sibugay went into labor while on board the ferry. This is the mother’s second child.

According to Nurse Marex S. Hitalia, who assisted in the delivery together with Nurse Gail Ann Hallasgo, the mother had come from Oslob, Cebu, where she was working, and was already on her way home to her province. She was traveling alone and had even driven a motorcycle during her land journey before reaching the port.

At first, the ship’s crew did not immediately notice that the woman was pregnant because it was not obvious. She also did not use the priority lane when boarding the vessel. While the ferry was already at sea, an announcement was made calling for any nurse, midwife, or doctor on board to assist with an emergency.

Nurse Hitalia responded to the second paging announcement, while Nurse Hallasgo, who has prior experience assisting in delivery room procedures, immediately proceeded to the ship’s sick room upon learning that the emergency involved a pregnant passenger.

Upon arriving at the sick room, Nurses Hitalia and Hallasgo confirmed that the woman was already in active labor. The mother informed them that she was only seven months pregnant, which raised concerns due to the risk of premature delivery and the long distance she had traveled by motorcycle.

With limited medical supplies and no complete medications available on board, the two nurses initially advised the mother to try to hold the labor if possible. However, after a few minutes, the mother said she could no longer endure the pain and felt that the baby was about to come out. Upon examination, the nurses confirmed that the baby was already crowning.

The risks were explained to the mother by the nurses, and her consent was obtained before proceeding with the delivery.

The delivery was carried out inside the ship’s sick room. Despite the lack of equipment, Nurses Hitalia and Hallasgo worked together to safely deliver the baby, and both the mother and the newborn were in good condition after the procedure.

Upon the vessel’s arrival at the Dipolog port, the mother and her newborn were immediately escorted by military officials. The mother was safely transferred into an ambulance for further medical care.

Nurse Marex S. Hitalia personally carried the newborn to the ambulance so the baby could be reunited with the mother. Hitalia later shared that she had only recently passed the nursing board examination in November 2025 and never expected to encounter such a situation in real life.

“I thought this only happened in movies, but it really happened in real life. Thank God the labor was successful and both the mother and the baby are safe,” Hitalia said.

The mother expressed her gratitude to the nurses, the ship’s crew, and the authorities who responded quickly during the emergency.

The incident is considered a rare event during sea travel and highlights the dedication of health workers and responders in providing help even in unexpected situations. (December 22, 2025, Mikaila Abrinica, photo from Marex Hitalia)

Nag-alok ng P1 million na pabuya si Basilan Governor Hadjiman Salliman nitong Lunes para sa sinumang makakatulong sa pag-aresto sa limang mga preso na tumakas mula sa Basilan Provincial Jail nitong Linggo, March 30, 2025.

Pinaghahanap na ng mga kasapi ng ibat-ibang mga units ng Basilan Provincial Police Office at ng intelligence personnel ng 101st Infantry Brigade ng Philippine Army ang limang mga pugante — sina Mahad Hassan, Ibrahim Badju, Maudz Ahmad, Tiddie Buga at Mohammad Amar — na tumakas sa provincial jail nitong Linggo ng hapon.

Ayon kay Salliman naglaan ng P1 million ang kanyang tanggapan na igagawad sa sinumang makakatulong sa muling pagkaka-aresto ng lima na may mga kinakaharap na mga kasong mabigat katulad ng murder at illegal possession ng mga pampasabog at mga baril.

Iniulat nitong Lunes ni Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director ng Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, na nagtutulungan sina Salliman, ang mga opisyal ng Basilan provincial police at mga mayors sa pagtunton sa limang mga puganteng lahat ay mga residente ng probinsya. (April 1, 2025)

Two men tagged in 13 motorcycle thefts and known for distributing shabu in isolated barangays are now both detained, awaiting prosecution.

Salman Kato Samama, 44, and his 43-year-old cohort, Jumel Matavia Ledesma, were intercepted on Tuesday night, January 9, 2024, by policemen led by Lt. Col. Esmael Madin in the town proper of Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao del Norte, while on their way to somewhere to deliver to a buyer P12,000 worth of shabu.

Madin, chief of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, said the duo was intercepted at a security roadblock that they set after receiving tips from vigilant tipsters about their supposed delivery of their illegal merchandise to a contact in one of the barangays under their jurisdiction.

He said they are now investigating reports by “concerned citizens” that Samama and Ledesma had stolen more than a dozen motorcycles in different towns and in nearby Cotabato City in recent months.

Besides the P12,000 worth shabu seized from them by personnel of the Datu Odin MPS that intercepted them at a stretch of a highway in the municipality, the two suspects also yielded a .38 revolver and a motorcycle without registration document, believed to be one of the units they have stolen recently.

Madin said they have separately charged Samama and Ledesma with possession of shabu and an unlicensed handgun.

“Once we can get confirmation from the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Office that the motorcycle we have confiscated from them is a stolen motorcycle, we shall file a corresponding motorcycle theft case against them too,” Madin said. (JAN.11, 2024, JOHN UNSON)