North Cotabato holds prayer rally three days after bloody dispersal

KIDAPAWAN CITY — North Cotabato residents gathered at the North Cotabato provincial capitol ground for a prayer rally on Monday morning, three days after the bloody dispersal of protesting farmers by the police left three people dead.

Coming from 17 towns including Kidapawan City, the site of last Friday's violence, the crowd started arriving at the venue as early as 6 a.m. on board vehicles. They gathered at the pavilion where the prayer rally, dubbed as "Rally for Peace and Reconciliations," was conducted.

Religious leaders from various congregations offered prayers and urged the people in North Cotabato to join hands and work together to achieve lasting peace in the province despite the incident.

They asked the Lumads, Muslims and Christians alike not to resort to violence and instead solve the conflict in a negotiating table.

"We need not fight. We are brothers and sisters despite our belief, religion and political affiliation," a Protestant pastor said.

North Cotabato 1st District Board Member Loreto Cabaya could not give an estimate of the crowd, but stressed that the venue was almost full.

Cabaya disclosed that the participants in Monday's rally voluntarily came to participate in the activity. "They came here on their own," he said.

He said the activity was purely religious since participants were  given chance to give their respective prayers during the duration of the program.

"For the past three hours, just prayers are echoed in this site," Cabaya said, adding that there was no politics behind the rally.

Governor Emmylou Mendoza, however, did not attend the prayer rally, but Vice Governor Gregorio Ipong, the board members and the mayors were there.

The prayer rally ended at 12 noon with a prayer for the policemen injured in last Friday's incident. —Williamor A. Magbanua/KBK, GMA News