Three powerful bombs defused in Cotabato

COTABATO CITY - Alerted by civilians, authorities safely defused three powerful improvised bombs in busy places at the town proper of Pikit, North Cotabato yesterday.

This developed as government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) negotiators formed, in a meeting here yesterday, six more joint special working committees to discuss the "clustering" of issues in the nine-point agenda of the formal peace talks.

Pikit Vice Mayor Jaime Gomez said the bombs were planted at the bus terminal and at the fish and meat sections of the public market, not far away from the town hall.

"We were just fortunate that some vigilant civilians immediately sought help from the police and the military after seeing these bombs which were defused safely," Gomez said.

The bombs were made of live rounds of 60-mm mortars, battery-operated timing devices, mixtures of incendiary powders and shredded metals.

Local probers have no solid clues yet on who were behind the bombing attempts and their possible motives.

"Our police investigators are now pursuing some leads. We just have to wait for their findings," Gomez said.

Maj. Julieto Ando, information officer of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, said their commander, Maj. Gen. Gregorio Camiling, has asked all intelligence units in the area to help the police track down the people behind the bombing attempts.

"As of now, we cannot blame any group yet for this incident. We have to wait for the feedback of our operatives who are now working with their informants in critical areas," Ando said.

Pikit, a virtually sleepy town in the first district of North Cotabato, is less than 20 kilometers from Kabacan, where suspected MILF rebels exploded a homemade bomb inside a department store last month, in a daring attack that left three shoppers dead and 16 others seriously wounded.

The military has blamed the MILF for the Kabacan bombing, accusing the rebel group of staging the atrocity to divert the military's attention from its offensive on MILF enclaves in nearby Carmen town.

The Pikit police said the improvised bombs could have been left by men seen suspiciously roaming at the town proper aboard a passenger jeepney.

"Our civilian volunteers and barangay officials have been very vigilant since the spate of bombings in different parts of Mindanao began," Gomez said.

Residents in Pikit are no strangers to violence, having witnessed in recent years fierce clashes between state and MILF forces in many of their far-flung barangays.

Meanwhile, the technical committees on cessation of hostilities and agenda-setting of the government and MILF peace panels agreed to "cluster" similar issues in the agenda of the formal talks.

"One example of these clustered topics are on the landless Bangsamoro, agrarian reform, destruction in war-torn communities, etc.," said Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs who just arrived from a month-long trip to the Middle East.

Jaafar said the MILF peace panel already has a complete membership slate for the six new special working committees, which will be presented to the government panel when the formal talks resume on March 8-9 at the Estosan Garden Hotel here.