SOCO distributes relief supplies to families affected by quarantine in Bangsamoro region

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Police forensic experts in the Bangsamoro region this week distributed food to people displaced by the COVID-19 quarantine, an outreach mission beneficiaries have never thought of.

“We know they are few and are focused only on resolving crimes by processing pieces of evidence collected in crime scenes,” Wahida Sangid said in Filipino.

Her family received Thursday rice and instant noodles from subordinates of Police Col. Arnold Dulnuan, chief of the Regional Crime Laboratory Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

The relief goods were procured by personnel of the RCLO-BAR, based in Cotabato City, using their own money.

Members of the RCLO-BAR have initially provided with relief supplies this week a number of poor families in swampy areas at Kakar area in Cotabato City and in Upper Capiton in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao.

Moro elders in both areas told reporters Saturday they never thought police personnel wearing dark blue shirts marked SOCO, meaning “scene of crime operative,” would knock on houses to disperse individual packs of relief supplies comprised of rice and instant noodles and a tray of eggs.

The humanitarian activity of the RCLO-BAR began with a symbolic handover early this week of food for iftar, or first meal after a day-long Ramadan fast, to Muslim personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police guarding a COVID-19 checkpoint along a highway at the border of the municipality and Cotabato City.

Muslims fast from dawn to dusk during the Ramadan, one of the 12 months in the lunar-based Islamic Hijrah calendar, both as a religious obligation and a form of a sacrifice for atonement of sins and to learn the value of self-restraint in achieving spiritual perfection.

Brig. Gen, Manuel Abu, police director for the Bangsamoro region, said Saturday he is grateful to the RCLO-BAR for embarking on the relief missions.

The RCLO-BAR is not under the Bangsamoro regional police administratively but Abu has ministerial coordinative authority over the unit, whose administrative center is in the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Camp Crame, Quezon City.