Experts to help set up Marawi City anti-terror emergency network

COTABATO CITY — A regional telecommunications ministry offered to help the Mindanao State University establish a viable emergency reaction network for mobile phone users in its campus in Marawi City.

Technical personnel of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Cotabato City told reporters on Tuesday that they can set up such networks with the help of private telecommunications companies whose operation covers Lanao del Sur and its capital, Marawi City.

Bangsamoro Regional Transportation and Communications Minister Paisalin Tago was among the first who condemned the bombing of a worship rite at MSU’s Dimaporo gymnasium on Sunday that left four Christian worshipers dead and hurt more than 30 others.

Tago, a Maranao who hails from Lanao del Sur, told reporters at about noon Sunday, just a few hours after the bombing, that the bombing was a “diabolic act” and that its perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted for the offense.

Communications experts in the MoTC-BARMM said on Tuesday that they are ready to help the MSU administration design a digital mobile phone emergency contact and reply systems with the help of private telecommunications giants.

“That can be our small contribution to the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region now doing its best to solve that deadly incident that made us very sad,” a senior Bangsamoro telecommunications expert, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, told reporters on Tuesday morning.

Provincial offices of agencies under MoTC-BARMM, are located in Marawi City, the administrative seat of the Lanao del Sur provincial government.

Officials of the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Office and the Bangsamaro Land Transportation Regulatory and Franchising Board, both under MoTC-BARMM, said on Tuesday that their subordinates in Marawi City are now helping gather information on vehicles that entered and went out of the MSU campus before a powerful explosion ripped through the Dimaporo gymnasium.

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr., whose office is in Marawi City, on Tuesday told reporters that they have facilitated the turn over to their families of the four fatalities