Cotabato disputes ‘ISIS flag parade’ near local school
COTABATO CITY — Officials are disputing a foreign media report on a group supposedly displaying an Islamic State flag near a local college campus.
Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, chairperson of the city peace and order council, said a November 4 report by Channel News Asia purporting that "young men" displayed an IS flag near the Notre Dame University for about 10 minutes was unfounded.
According to the CNA report "Fears of another Marawi as Islamic State militants regroup, plan suicide bombings", a man in a group of around 10 people "draped the black flag of Islamic State behind his back and walked up and down the street together with his friends."
The report also quoted Rommel Banlaoi, head of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, as saying that "Cotabato City is in serious trouble. It is badly infiltrated by pro-IS groups," something local leaders and senior security officials do not agree with.
Banlaoi is neither a resident of Cotabato City nor of any community in central Mindanao.
Senior Superintendent Rolly Octavio, director of the Cotabato City police, also refuted the reported display of an IS, sometimes called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, flag near NDU.
The school, which has been operating since the 1950s, is a staunch advocate of solidarity among the regions Christian, Muslim and Lumad residents.
"My office and our intelligence agents did not receive any such news from their informants there. We have a barangay chairman there, Sukarno Utto, who is good in enforcing law and order. It is impossible for him not to know of it," Octavio said.
Utto has a team of barangay watchmen guarding the surroundings of NDU at all hours of the day.
The CNA report is part of a series of articles. It does not say when the supposed display of the ISIS flag happened.