2 killed, 3 hurt in North Cotabato church blast

NORTH COTABATO - Two worshipers were killed while three others were injured in a powerful explosion that ripped through a chapel of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Pikit town Wednesday night, police and Army officials said.

The 40 millimeter shoulder-fire grenade projectile used in the attack, fired from a distance through the entrance door of the worship site, landed and went off near a row of seats occupied by churchgoers performing midweek prayer rites.

Col. Andrie Edralin, commanding officer of the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion, identified the fatalities as Felomina Nacario-Ferolin and Gina Cabiluna, both residents of Pikit.

Ferolin, 54, was chief nurse in the municipal health office in Maguindanao’s Pagalungan town, about three kilometers northeast of Pikit, while the 39-year-old Cabiluna was a teacher in a public school.

Injured victims Jeremias, 60, and Gerome, 28, both surnamed Dandan, and Virgie Manulid, 63, who sustained shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies, are now undergoing medication in different hospitals.

Gerry Sanchez, a UCCP pastoral preacher in Pikit, said none of the victims have known enemies.

He said they have not received any threat of such attack on their church prior to the incident either.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, chair of the provincial peace and order council, condemned the incident and promised to help in the burial of Ferolin and Cabiluna, and in the hospitalization of the injured UCCP church members.

Senior Inspector Mautin Pangandingan, chief of the Pikit municipal police, said the investigators have yet to determine the identities of the people behind the bombing and the motive for the attack.

The attack happened hours after Senators Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Teofisto Guingona III jointly presided over a consultation, at the campus of the Notre Dame University in Cotabato City, on the proposed creation of a Bangsamoro government in Mindanao through the draft Basic Bangsamoro Law (BBL).

The draft BBL, once enacted into law and ratified via a plebiscite, will pave the way for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a Bangsamoro self-governing entity as part of the final peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.