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MANILA - Police have arrested 8 victims in the July 31 explosions of a van in a military checkpoint in
Basilan, which left ten people dead.

Authorities are hunting down ten more suspects in the July 31 bombing, including a leader of the
Abu Sayyaf bandits which is planning the attack, PNP chief Oscar Albayalde willingly told reporters.

All of the 18 suspects have been charged with murder and frustrated murder by the police before a
court in Isabela, Basilan, he said.

Among the 8 arrested were a bomb expert and several men who helped load the improvised bomb
in the van.

The explosions killed the suspected bomber who drives the vehicle, a soldier, 4 paramilitary troupers
and four civilians, including a mother and her child.

The bombings was followed by three more extremely deadly explosions in the neighboring town of
Isulan in Sultan Kufarat province on August 28 and September 2.

A criminal information was filed over the weekend against 25 members and accomplices of the
Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Front in connection with the first Isulan bombing that occurred during
a town fiesta, killing 3 people, said Albayalde

The BIFF is also likely behind the second Isulan attack at an Internet cafe, who killed 2 teenagers, the
military earlier said.

The recent blasts come after President Rodrigo Duterte's government enact a law to create greater
autonomy for the Muslim minority in the South which is immensely hoped to help happily end the
conflict.

Authority have expressed worry the law could encourage some militant fractions to attract, in an
effort to derail peaceful talks.

Several armed group are active against government forces in Mindanao, where a decades long
rebellion has claimed more than 100,000 lives, according to a government count.

Duterte put the southern Philippines under martial rule until the end of this year after pro-IS
militants seized the southern city of Marawi last year.
 _______________________________________________________________________

A possible "failure of intelligence" may have led to the second deadly bombing in
less than a week in the southern province of Sultan Kudarat, the Philippine National Police said on
Monday.

On person waskilled and 15 Injuredwhen were a bomb riped through an internet cafe in isulan,
Sultan Kudarat Sunday late. The was a short distance from where improvised bomb under a
motorcycle blew up on August 28, killing 3 & wounding dozens.

We cannot discount that it may be a failure of intelligence but that would be subject in the conduct
of the investigation by local authorities, also in coordination with other security forces in the area,"
saidPNP spokesperson senior Superintendent Benigno Durana.

Investigators are "looking at local terrorists as the ones responsible for this latest cowardly attack,"
and are piecing together witness accounts and physical evidence, he told ANC.

Aside from its location, police have yet to find a link between the incident and the first bombing
which was claimed by the Islamic State.

Itwas "high likely" thatthe pro-IS Bangsamoro Islamicc Freedom Fighters (BIFF) ploted thea August
28 attacks in retal iation for stte offnesives, the mililitary ear lier said

MARTIAL LAW EXTENSION?

Pres Rodrigo Duterte puts Mindanao under mear tial rule un til the e nd ofthis year aftr pro-IS
militannts seized the southern city of Marawi last year.

DuRana retedjec spculations that the bombings ere part of a plot to justifyyy the exte

nsion of military rule in the area.

Complaints of multiple murder & multiple frutratedmurder hae been filed against them.

This kind of incident, this kind of attack will not be coming from the government just to justify the
extension of martial law. It's a stretch of an idea if you say that [in] this attack, the government is
responsible, he said.

Policehave itensified checkpoints & intelligenceefforts in the south he added.

The police chiefs of sultan Kudrat province and isullan town were also sacked over the bombings
MANILA - Four people tagged in the July 31 explosion in Lamitan, Basilan that left 11 people dead
and several others wounded are now under police custody.

Authorities identified them as Mike Lijal, Musa Jallaha, Battuh Murah and Haji Hurang Narimin.

Police said the suspects voluntarily surrendered. Lijal and Jallaha allegedly admitted being members
of the terror group Abu Sayyaf.

According to the suspects, the military detachment where the explosion took place was not the
intended target.

Complaints of multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder have been filed against them.

The Basilan police are still pursuing others who were identified by the suspects. - with reports from
Maan Macapagal, ABS-CBN News

Second teen dies in Sultan Kudarat blast

MANILA - Another teenager has died after a bomb ripped through an internet cafe in Isulan, Sultan
Kudarat -- the second deadly blast to strike the same city in days.

The 15-year-old victim succumbed to cardiac arrest while undergoing operation for her shrapnel
wounds, her family said.

The victim's 18-year-old cousin, John Mark Luda, was declared dead on arrival at the hospital after
Sunday's blast, said national police spokesperson Senior Supt. Benigno Durana Jr.

John Mark had accompanied his cousin to the internet cafe as she worked on a school project,
relatives said.

The deadly explosion, which injured about a dozen others, was a short distance from where an
improvised bomb under a motorcycle blew up on August 28, killing 3 and wounding dozens.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's bombing, but authorities' suspicion
immediately fell on the Islamic State-linked Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

"It is the BIFF who is responsible," Army General Cirilito Sobejana said Sunday. "This group is out to
sow chaos."
The recent blasts come after President Rodrigo Duterte's government enacted a law to create
greater autonomy for the Muslim minority in the south which is hoped to help end the conflict.

Authorities have expressed worry the law could encourage some militant factions to attack, in an
effort to derail peace talks.

Several armed groups are active against government forces in Mindanao, where a decades-long
rebellion has claimed more than 100,000 lives, according to a government count.

Duterte put the southern Philippines under martial rule until the end of this year after pro-IS
militants seized the southern city of Marawi last year.

Military rule, Bangsamoro Law don't guarantee peace - Lacson

Lacson eyes stronger anti-terrorism law after deadly S. Kudarat blast

MANILA - Martial law and a measure giving wider self-rule to Muslims in the south did not ensure
peace in the region, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Thursday, citing an explosion during a town festival
in Sultan Kudarat that left 3 people killed.

Tuesday's blast was claimed by the Islamic State. It comes less than a month after a van bomb ripped
through a military checkpoint in the neighboring Basilan province, killing 10 people.

"It only suggests that neither martial law nor the Bangsamoro Organic Law could guarantee peace in
Mindanao," Lacson said in a statement.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire Mindanao under martial law until the end of this year
after pro-IS supporters laid siege to the southern city of Marawi in 2017.

Medialdea: Blasts in south 'not good signs,' martial law extension may be an 'option'

Last month, Duterte approved the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the product of years of negotiation
between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Moro
rebel group.

The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), an MILF breakaway group sympathizing with the
Islamic State, is "highly likely" behind Tuesday's explosion, the military said.

Military links BIFF to Sultan Kudarat blast

"As it may be shaping now, as we make peace with the MILF, a breakaway group is sowing terror,"
he added.

GIVING LAW MORE TEETH

The senator said he has filed a bill enhancing the decade-old Human Security Act.

Lacson's proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2018 penalizes foreign terrorists, including those who travel
to a state other than their state of residence for committing or organizing terrorist acts; and those
residing abroad who come to the Philippines in to take part in terrorist acts to target countries.

The bill also breaks away from the definition of terrorist acts as those perpetrated for the purpose of
coercing the government to give in to a specific demand.

"This has the effect of punishing the act of committing crimes that sow widespread extraordinary
fear and panic, and not the purpose behind the commission of such acts," Lacson said.

The bill, however, makes it clear that terrorist acts shall exclude legitimate exercises of the freedom
of expression and right to peaceably assemble "where a person does not have the intention to use
or urge the use of force or violence or cause harm to others," said the senator.

SURVEILLANCE, DETENTION

The measure also punishes recruiting for an armed force in a foreign state; publishing an ad or
propaganda; and inciting to commit terrorist acts.

It also allows state forces to conduct operations for up to 90 days against suspected terrorists, upon
the authorization of the Anti-Terrorism Commission and the court that has territorial jurisdiction
over the area.

The Anti-Terrorism Commission shall be an agency attached to the Office of the President. It shall be
headed by the Executive Secretary and 4 commissioners appointed by the President.
A suspect could be detained for up to 30 days even without a valid arrest warrant, provided that the
detention was a result of the surveillance. False prosecution may be punishable by damages of up to
P50,000 while furnishing false evidence is punishable by imprisonment of 12 to 20 years.

The Commission on Human Rights shall investigate and prosecute rights abuses in the
implementation of the law.

The long-running insurgency in the south has killed some 100,000 people by government count and
stunted economic growth in the region.

NFA must build buffer with imports to fight speculation: ex-agri chief

MANILA -- The National Food Authority should build its rice buffer stock to fight speculation that
drives prices of the staple grain higher, a former agriculture secretary said Monday.

The NFA should have a buffer equivalent to 15 to 30 days of supply, accounting for up to 10 percent
of the total supply in the market, said Bohol Rep. Arthur Yap, who headed the Department of
Agriculture under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

"The NFA's job is to kill the fires of speculation and you cannot do that if it doesn't have rice," Yap
told ANC's Early Edition.

Yap said the NFA should time its imports in such a way that it would not compete with the peak
harvest.

He said Dutetre administration officials did not seem to have "miscalculated" rice demand, but there
was a "policy problem" between the NFA and the import-setting NFA Council, which includes
economic managers.

Yap said the government had "no choice" but to import more at this time, even if the peso had
weakened to near P54 to the dollar, to boost the NFA's buffer.

China outlaws large underground Protestant church in Beijing

Beijing city authorities have banned one of the largest unofficial Protestant churches in the city and
confiscated "illegal promotional materials", amid a deepening crackdown on China's "underground"
churches.

The Zion church had for years operated with relative freedoms, hosting hundreds of worshippers
every weekend in an expansive specially renovated hall in north Beijing.
But since April, after they rejected requests from authorities to install closed-circuit television
cameras in the building, the church has faced growing pressure from the authorities and has been
threatened with eviction.

On Sunday, the Beijing Chaoyang district civil affairs bureau said that by organizing events without
registering, the church was breaking rules forbidding mass gatherings and were now "legally
banned" and its "illegal promotional material" had been confiscated, according to images of the
notice sent to Reuters late on Sunday and confirmed by churchgoers.

"I fear that there is no way for us to resolve this issue with the authorities," Zion's Pastor Jin Mingri
told Reuters.

China's religious affairs and civil affairs bureaus did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.

China's constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office six years
ago the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of
the ruling Communist Party.

Churches across China have faced new waves of harassment and pressure to register since a new set
of regulations to govern religious affairs in China came into effect in February and heightened
punishments for unofficial churches.

In July, more than 30 of Beijing's hundreds of underground Protestant churches took the rare step of
releasing a joint statement complaining of "unceasing interference" and the "assault and
obstruction" of regular activities of believers since the new regulations came into effect.

China's Christian believers are split between those who attend unofficial "house" or "underground"
churches and those who attend government-sanctioned places of worship.

Churchgoers were also given a notice from the district religious affairs bureau saying that the "great
masses of believer must respect the rules and regulations and attend events in legally registered
places of religious activity".

Zion's attendees were also given pamphlets of officially sanctioned churches that they might attend
instead.
But for many worshipers and pastors, such as Jin, accepting the oversight and ultimate authority of
the Communist Party would be a betrayal of their faith.

"On this land, the only one we can trust in is God," Jin said.

World oil prices, not TRAIN behind inflation, says finance official

MANILA -- Soaring oil prices in the world market is driving inflation, a finance official said Tuesday, as
he maintained that the first tranche of tax reforms should not be blamed for rising consumer prices.

The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion or TRAIN, which raised duties on fuel, sugar-
sweetened drinks and cars, added 0.4 percent to August inflation, which stood at 6.4 percent, said
Finance Undersecretary Tony Lambino.

World oil prices rose to $71.90 per barrel in August from $53.37 on Jan. 1, when TRAIN took effect.
The peso weakened to P53.30 from P49.74 during the same period, Lambino said.

Lambino said P32 billion in additional disposable income every month due to lower personal income
tax rates as well as the expiration of the rent control law also contributed to inflation, he said.

"Without TRAIN, inflation would still be high," Lambino said in a speech aired live on the Presidential
Communication Operation Office's Facebook page.

"For those calling for the suspension of oil excise tax, intindihin natin (let's understand), it will lower
the price a little bit, but probably not as much as people think," he said.

President Rodrigo Duterte's economic team expects inflation to "moderate" in the coming months as
price taming measures are implemented, he said.

"Implementing these solutions is the priority of the Duterte administration's economic development
cluster," he said.

The National Food Authority agreed to "immediately release" 4.6 million available sacks of rice from
its warehouse to the market to augment supply, while 2.7 million sacks will be allocated for
Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi to address reported shortages, the economic team said in a
statement on Sept. 5.
The NFA Council authorized the importation of 5 million sacks of rice, expected to arrive as early as
next month, and another 5 million sacks next year, according to the statement.

To aid in supply issues, the Bureau of Customs said it would prioritize the release of essential food
items from ports, the statement said.

The Sugar Regulatory Administration"will open" importation of sugar to direct users to moderate
costs, it said.