COTABATO CITY (February 12, 2026) — Cause-oriented organizations and regional officials on Tuesday, February 19, assured of support for efforts by the Bangsamoro police to resolve the brutal hazing of 129 neophyte members of the force by colleagues senior to them in ranks in Lamitan City in Basilan last week.
Some of the newly-trained policemen, who reported for duty in Lamitan City then as newcomers in a unit in the area of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 14B of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and got mauled during the rude reception rite, were brought to a hospital for treatment.
Members of the influential multi-sector Regional Advisory Group of PRO-BAR, led by its president, the lawyer Ronald Hallid D. Torres, separately told reporters in Cotabato City on Tuesday that they are optimistic of a fair closure soon on the incident, which went viral on Facebook.
Mr. Torres said the regional director of PRO-BAR, Brig. Gen. Jaysen C. De Guzman, is personally overseeing the investigation on the issue and even proceeded to Lamitan City last Sunday to talk to his subordinates who complained about their having been maltreated by longtime members of the RMFB 14B.
“The incident is so saddening. We want it resolved soon,” Mr. Torres said.
The lawyer Fahd A. Candao, regional director for BARMM of the National Police Commission and is also a member of the RAG PRO-BAR, said their central office had ordered him to conduct a separate probe on the incident.
Bangsamoro Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin G. Sema, who is chairman of the central committee of the Moro National Liberation Front, said they felt so aggrieved learning that among the patrolmen injured then are members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front who got admitted into PRO-BAR, after basic training, as part of the MILF’s peace pact with the national government.
Leaders of the MNLF and the MILF, which have separate peace agreements with the national government, are together managing some agencies in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and have representatives too in BARMM’s 80-seat regional parliament.
“That was a clear violation of the country’s Anti-Hazing Act of 2018. What was done to these young policemen was a criminal offense. We want justice for them,” Mr. Sema said.
A regional lawmaker, Naguib G. Sinarimbo, deputy floor leader in BARMM’s 80-seat parliament, told reporters on Tuesday that he also supports PRO-BAR’s investigation on the incident.
“We have no doubt on the capability of the Bangsamoro regional police to resolve that issue according to procedures set by the Philippine National Police,” said Mr. Sinarimbo, also a lawyer, who was local government minister of BARMM before he was appointed as member of the regional parliament by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. last year.
Mr. Sinarimbo, a staunch supporter of the peace overture between the national government and the MILF, said he is worried of its effect on the programmed integration soon into PRO-BAR of more members of the front based on the peace and security agenda of its 2014 truce with the national government.
Mr. De Guzman and Basilan’s provincial police director, Col. Cerrazid A. Umabong, separately told reporters that all of the more than 70 policemen responsible for the reception rite that went awry are to be detained at the Regional Personnel Records Management Division–Regional Police Holding and Accounting Section of PRO-BAR in Camp SK Pendatun in Parang town in Maguindanao del Norte, awaiting litigation for their offense.
