More cops deployed in Marawi City MSU campus

COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro regional police deployed on Tuesday a company-size combat-ready contingent to secure the Mindanao State University campus in Marawi City for students to feel safe while in their classrooms.

The MSU administration again announced on Wednesday that classes in the university have not been suspended despite the bombing on Sunday of the mass at the university’s Dimaporo Gymnasium that left four Catholic worshipers dead and injured more than 30 others.

“We have enough personnel to secure the MSU campus. The police, the military, the city government of Marawi and the administration of the governor of Lanao del Sur are on top of the situation. Classes can continue normally,” Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said on Wednesday.

Nobleza deployed at the MSU campus a company from PRO-BAR’s rapid deployment Regional Mobile Force Battalion 14, backed by units under the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office.

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. said on Wednesday that he was elated over the offer of his counterpart in Sultan Kudarat province in Region 12, Gov. Pax Ali Mangudadatu, of a P1 million cash reward for any information leading to the arrest of the terrorists responsible for the deadly worship rite bombing.

Two pioneer broadcast outfits in Cotabato City, the Catholic station DXMS and DXMY-Radio Mindanao Network, reported on Wednesday morning that Mangudadatu is ready to release the amount to any informant who can help locate the bombers, two of them identified as the Dawlah Islamiya members Arseni Membisa and Wahab Macabayao, both ethnic Maranaws.

The duo was tagged by religious leaders and local executives in Lanao del Sur as the direct perpetrators of the bombing, assisted by two other cohorts.

The improvised explosive device that Membisa and Macabayao used in the attack was made up of a 60 millimeter mortar projectile, packed with fragments of cast iron with jagged edges and bent nails and rigged with a blasting mechanism that can be detonated from a distance using a mobile phone.

“I am thankful to the PRO-BAR and the 103rd Infantry Brigade, which is based in Marawi City, for doing everything to make the students, employees and the faculty members in MSU feel that they are safe and that were are working together in seeking justice for the victims of the bombing,” Adiong said.