REGION | Zero firecracker, gunshot injuries reported in Cotabato City

City police officials attributed the absence of firecracker and gunshot injuries during the holidays to the executive order issued last November by Cotabato City Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, which banned the sale and use of firecrackers in the city. Val Rodriguez, File By John Unson

COTABATO CITY — The 37 barangays here set in 2016 a historic record of zero firecracker or gunshot injuries during the December holiday revelries, something strangely new to local folks.

 

Muslim and Christian residents of Cotabato City, created in the 1950s, are known for their tradition of extravagant use of firecrackers and firing of handguns and assault rifles overhead to greet the Islamic Eid’l Fit’r holiday and during the Christmas and New Year revelries.

 

Halima Satol-Ibrahim, city information officer, told The STAR Monday that all of the city’s four hospitals have not recorded any firecracker or bullet injury during the Christmas and New Year’s Day.

 

Chiefs of the four police precincts here confirmed the feat, a record-setting precedent.

 

City police officials attributed the absence of reported revelry-related injuries to the executive order issued last November by Cotabato City Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, which banned the sale and use of firecrackers in all of the 37 barangays here.

 

There were 10 reported cases of firecracker injuries in December 2015.

 

More than twenty residents sustained accidental gunshot wounds during revelries in the past three decades.

 

The ban issued by the iron-fisted Guiani-Sayadi, a lawyer, also prohibited the use of firecrackers by Muslims in revelries marking the Eid’l Fit’r, which signals the culmination of the Islamic Ramadhan fasting season.

 

The mayor also led policemen in preventing revelers from riding motorcycles without mufflers to create noise from nighttime December 31 to early January 1.

 

The city’s information office said Guiani-Sayadi is thankful to barangay officials for helping her office enforce the restriction on sale and use of firecrackers during the Yuletide Season.

 

The executive order the mayor issued also explicitly regulated the use of pyrotechnics for special occasions.

 

Any permitted use of fireworks anywhere in Cotabato City must be supervised by personnel of the Bureau of Fire Protection.