Visibility of cops, marines increased in Cotabato City

COTABATO CITY — The police and the Navy’s 5th Marine Battalion have tightened security in strategic areas of Cotabato City following a series of deadly gun attacks, amid the gun ban enforced by the Commission on Elections since January 12.

Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, told reporters on Friday, March 7, that joint teams of policemen and Marines are also guarding all routes connecting the city to nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte, a province in the Bangsamoro region.

Cotabato City is the administrative seat of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. 

"Our men are guarding the city on a round-the-clock basis. Barangay officials are helping maintain law and order around," said Bongcayao, who personally leads nighttime police patrols in the city. 

Police records indicate that almost all of the recent shooting incidents in Cotabato City involved outsiders, from towns in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces. 

Bongcayao said barangay officials are assisting them and the 5th Marine Battalion in preventing a repeat of the recent atrocities in busy areas of Cotabato City.

The 5th Marine Battalion, led by Lt. Col. Lester Mark Baky, has teams of motorcycle-riding servicemen patrolling barangays to support the police’s anti-crime operations and the enforcement of the Comelec’s gun ban, aimed at ensuring peaceful elections in May 2025.

In the past six weeks, policemen under Bongcayao and Marine combatants had arrested nine individuals, one of them a barangay chairman in Cotabato City, for violating the gun ban.

The Marines in Cotabato City and nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte are under the operational control of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.