BARMM, peace agency launch relief drive in quake-hit GenSan, Sarangani

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

June 10, 2026 | 7:28pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro government and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity are together initiating disaster response operations since Tuesday, June 9, in General Santos City and in Sarangani province, where thousands got displaced by the 7.8 Magnitude earthquake that jolted both areas the day before.

General Santos City and Sarangani province are both in Administrative Region 12.

South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr., said on Wednesday that the office of OPAPRU Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento and Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao dispatched on Tuesday to General Santos City the BARMM government’s Rapid Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis Team and personnel of its Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence Contingent for humanitarian missions in the area.

“We in the inter-agency and multi-sector Regional Peace and Order Council 12 appreciate their initiative. We are also thankful to all Army units now in Santos City and in municipalities in Sarangani for such missions too,” Tamayo, speaking as chairperson of the RPOC 12, told reporters via text message.

The Tamayo-led RPOC 12 covers the cities of General Santos, Koronadal, Tacurong and Kidapawan and the provinces of Sarangani, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato.

Tamayo said BARMM’s relief efforts for displaced residents in General Santos City and Sarangani also involve the office of Bangsamoro Local Government Minister Jordan Bayam.

Local executives in General Santos City and in different towns in Sarangani, officials of the Office of Civil Defense 12, the Police Regional Office 12 and the Bureau of Fire Protection 12 had separately told reporters that, as of Wednesday morning, their tally of General Santos City residents who died from injuries caused by the tremor is 14 and that emergency responders are still searching for villagers reported by relatives as missing.

Local executives had also pointed out that the 7.8 Magnitude earthquake that shook General Santos City and nearby towns in Sarangani on Monday morning destroyed 432 houses in the city alone, displacing 4,261 residents, among them children and elderly folks.

Radio reports in the adjoining South Cotabato province and General Santos City stated that the BARMM government delivered on Wednesday morning 5,000 food packs, containing rice, canned tuna and coffee and other food supplies, to the Sarangani provincial capitol in its capital town, Glan, for distribution to tremor-affected villagers.

The Bangsamoro government’s initial delivery of relief supplies for the displaced residents of Sarangani was facilitated together by the OPAPRU, the Ministry of Local Government-BARMM and the office of Macacua, who is also figurehead of the 80-seat regional parliament.

Sarmiento said their Local Conflict Transformation–Field Implementation Support Office-Mindanao is now initiating disaster impact assessment in areas in Sarangani where former communist insurgents and violent religious extremists, who have returned to the fold of law in recent years, reside to determine what interventions they can best extend to them to mitigate the adverse effects on them of Monday’s earthquake that forced them and their families to relocate to evacuation sites.