It would have been a usual Sunday for the hundred or so locals who regularly attended the morning services at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Barangay Walled City, Jolo, Sulu. Most would have been offering prayers to express gratitude for blessings received, some perhaps supplications for the robust health or good fortune of someone cherished while others implorations for the atonement of a misdeed or malfeasance. To Jolo’s Catholic community, the cathedral was a place of worship and communion, a venue for fellowship with their brethren of the faith.

Two Sundays past saw the cathedral, not as a site of prayerful communion or celebratory event. Two Sundays past, the cathedral inadvertently became part of the town’s violent history. Through the warped plotting of amoral psychopaths yet to be unveiled and identified, two improvised explosive devices (IED) were consecutively detonated — the first blasted the premises during Mass while the second exploded outside the cathedral’s perimeters. Two Sundays past, the cathedral was transformed into a horrific setting for a crime that snuffed out the lives of 20, wounded the bodies of more than a hundred, traumatized the minds of thousands of the town’s residents and maimed the souls of the Muslim community still reeling from the aftermath of the Marawi and Zamboanga sieges.

Government quickly responded with military and police authorities securing the area and conducting the search for the perpetrators and the President’s on-site declaration of an “all-out war” against the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).

Caution and restraint should be exercised though, with transparency and adherence to the rule of law paramount in the conduct of investigations, searches and arrests.

Releasing the CCTV footage of four individuals tagged “persons of interest” was akin to branding them as primary suspects to the public. While their reputations may remain tarred despite their innocence, at least they still live.

Recall the case of the seven young Tausug men, suspected as ASG members, who were allegedly killed by the military last September in Patikul. The ensuing public outcry prompted the still-to-be-concluded investigation by the Commission on Human Rights.

To date, tensions have remained high, with the increased military and police presence within the town and its environs. If Indonesia had indeed warned of possible bombings in Jolo and with martial law still covering the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, then the possibility of IED being transported and detonated within Jolo sans detection seems unlikely. Yet, Sunday’s attack reveals weaknesses in coordination or enforcement of security policies established under a martial law regime.

Loose firearms and munitions continue to proliferate in the region. With the porous coastline, this situation will surely remain unabated unless more effective policies are adopted and enforced.

With all these complexities, any plan of exiling recalcitrant members of the Philippine National Police or Armed Forces of the Philippines to Sulu and other areas in Mindanao for “rehabilitation” is patently incongruous. Rather, skilled and competent officers with experience in handling complicated situations are needed; counter measures tempered and calibrated, with intelligent rather than excessive use of force. Sunday’s victims deserve this.