Cotabato blasts aimed at Ampatuan’s SORA

COTABATO CITY — The mortar shells fired in a residential area here on Monday was aimed at the venue of the state-of-the-region address (SORA) of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan, but missed due to tactical miscalculations.

Sources from the police and the Army’s intelligence community said they have been receiving similar confirmations from informants, among them active secessionist guerrillas, that the attack was meant to disrupt Ampatuan’s SORA, his second since his election in 2005.

The mortar projectiles, according to the sources, could have been fired from a moving vehicle, thus causing instability in the calculation of the firing pattern.

Preceding Monday’s SORA, where Ampatuan underscored his administration’s accomplishments in the past 12 months, was the daring ambush-slay of the governor’s top adviser, accountant-lawyer Arnel Datukun, in a busy street at the center of the city last October.

Ampatuan’s legal counsel, ARMM solicitor-general Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, also survived a bomb attack while on her way home a month before Datukun was murdered.

Police investigators said the two 60 MM mortar projectiles, apparently fired from a distance, landed about a kilometer away from the 32-hectare compound where thousands were gathered to listen to Ampatuan’s SORA.

Among those present in the gathering were more than a dozen diplomats from member-states of the Organization of Islamic Conference, Governors Sadikul Sahali of Tawi-Tawi and Benjamin Loong of Sulu, and congressional representatives from different districts in the autonomous region.

Ampatuan, in his 10-minute SORA, focused on his gains in purging the graft-ridden ARMM government of syndicates involved in embezzling state funds, particularly those channeled to the region’s education department.

Ampatuan said the regional treasury, through the cooperation of the new heads of departments and offices he tapped to help him manage the region, logged a total revenue collection of almost P500 million from January to October alone this year.

"In the coming months, we shall focus on environmental protection, intensification of social welfare services and programs that would complement the peace process," Ampatuan said.