The last Plebiscite Committee leaves the distribution center in Buluan, Maguindanao for Tamontaka in Cotabato City a little past 6 a.m. on Monday as the first day of the plebiscite on the Bangsamoro Organic Law starts on Monday, January 21.
Today is #BangsamoroPlebiscite Day. Big day for everyone. Good luck to all. https://t.co/lBdPD90Ehb pic.twitter.com/0LQltCm1Ze
— COMELEC (@COMELEC) January 20, 2019
Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez said over the weekend that as high as 75 percent of the more than two million voters from Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), as well as the cities of Isabela in Basilan and Cotabato in Maguindanao are expected to go out and cast their votes.
A second plebiscite day is set for February 6 for areas in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte.
(Photo courtesy of PDEA-BARMM / MANILA BULLETIN)
Director Juvenal Azurin of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM) said the simultaneous operations yielded 1.5 kilos of suspected shabu, a pistol, and two vehicles.
Azurin identified the first suspect as Romie Diamillah Hadji Alawi, who was arrested by PDEA agents and soldiers under the Marine Battalion Landing Team (MBLT-5) and Army’s 55th and 82nd Infantry Battalions in Barangay Matalin at around 11:40 a.m.
“He did not resist arrest when government forces arrested him beside the highway. We seized a kilo of shabu with an estimated street value of PHP6.8-million from Alawi,” Azurin told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) in an interview.