Bombing victim's widow, kids get aid from ARMM

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - August 5, 2013  would have been just another day for the Satol couple in this city, but then a car bomb exploded and 30-year old  Saguiara Satol suddenly became a widow and her three children fatherless.

Saguiara's husband - 51-year-old Sangkala Satol - was one of the eight who died when the bomb went off along a stretch of the busy Sinsuat Avenue here.

Saguiara said her husband was buying   box of milk for their two-year-old son when the bomb exploded, killing him on the spot.

The roadside bombing marred the observance of the 25th day of the month-long Islamic Ramadan and the city's worst bombing experience in its 50-year history.

“We were together in a grocery across the street where the `car bomb’ was parked. He went out and told me he would wait for me outside because the establishment was full of Muslim customers buying something for their `iftar’ in the evening of August 5,” Satol said in Filipino.

The term “iftar” is Arabic for first meal at dusk, after a day-long fast. Healthy Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset during the Ramadan, which last for one lunar cycle, both as a religious obligation and a means to strengthen spiritual perfection.

Sangkala was a utility worker at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Office of the Regional Governor.

ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman has given the widow and her children P100,000 in cash assistance  on Thursday. 

The slain carpenter, an ethnic Maguindanaon, is survived by his wife, their three pre-school children, and two teenage sons with an estranged first wife.

Satol said her husband had a premonition of his tragic death.

Satol said he spoke of “taking good care” of their children if something happened to him and how he wished he would live to see a fruitful end to the on-going peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

“He knew only a little about the peace talks, but his heart was so zealous about seeing the Moro communities live in peace and prosperity, which he believed will happen after  the government and the MILF strike a final peace deal,” Satol said in the Maguindanaon dialect, in between sobs.

Satol said her husband had also told her to find a “younger man” because he was already old and that he was certain he would no longer see their three children grow up.

“I told him what he wanted was against Islamic principles, even if it was for practicality that he wanted me to find a younger man. I told him I will stand by him all the way and that death is something meaningful for Muslims because it is just a passage to another life,” Satol said.

Hataman, who personally handed over to Satol  the  cash assistance in a simple rite at his office here, said he has instructed his regional trade secretary,  Sakiran Hajan, to look for a way to to provide a livelihood assistance to the widow since she wants to spend the cash grant to put up a  small sari-sari store.

“We will also study how to provide employment to the victim’s two older sons with his first wife," Hataman said.