COTABATO CITY — Bangsamoro Health Minister Kadil M. Sinolinding, Jr. has offered a P200,000 reward for information that could help the police solve the setting off a fragmentation grenade at the entrance path to his clinic and office in Cotabato City at almost midnight.
Mr. Sinolinding, a concurrent member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament, has a separate office as health minister, which is located inside the 32-hectare regional capitol in Cotabato City.
Mr. Sinolinding, a physician-ophthalmologist, has no known enemies and is popular for his having treated thousands of poor cataract and pterygium patients for free since his “doctor to the barrio” days in the 1990s.
Employees of the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao hinted that Mr. Sinolinding also had possibly caught the ire of corrupt and non-performing officials affected by the extensive reform programs he has been pushing forward since he was appointed as health minister in early May this year.
His subordinates in his parliament office had shared to reporters and police investigators closed-circuit security camera recordings showing a motorist tossing a fragmentation grenade at the ground of his office and clinic compound and sped away just as an explosion ripped through the area.
No one was hurt in the bombing but the blast that reverberated through the scene caused panic among villagers in houses around. — John Felix M. Unson
