Army denies media reports, says no bombing in Maguindanao town

From the Mindanao Examiner BlogSpot site (Dec 30): Army denies media reports, says no bombing in Maguindanao town

The 6th Infantry Division has strongly denied Monday media reports of a bomb explosion in the province of Maguindanao in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Captain Jo-ann Petinglay, an army spokeswoman, said no explosion occurred in Shariff Aguak town. She said the bombing that allegedly took place in the village of Timbangan was reported by the Cotabato City station of radio network and picked by a national newspaper.

The radio station also attributed the news of the bombing to Petinglay. It went on to report that that the explosion was possibly the handiwork of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and also quoted the group’s spokesman Abu Misry Mama denying involvement in the bombing.

It further reported that the army’s bomb squad recovered no fragments of the explosive and that the bombing had caused tension among the villagers.

“There is no bombing or explosion and the news of the radio station was simply erroneous, but it was also picked by the national newspaper whose writer did not even bother to verify whether it was true or not,” Petinglay told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.

It was not immediately known if other journalists also picked up the fabricated reports.

http://www.mindanaoexaminer.net/2014/12/army-denies-media-reports-says-no.html