Bulletins

The Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS) Bulletins provide a brief and actionable overview of pressing issues in conflict-stricken areas based on the real-time data collected via SMS and two-way radio that are recorded in CCAA’s database.

These regular bulletin announcements focus on time-sensitive, critical, and emerging conflicts such as the elections, pandemic-related lockdown measures, looming threats, policy changes, and more. These are meant to inform relevant stakeholders such as government agencies and media outlets to respond effectively and mitigate conflict escalation.

Mounting displacement in the Bangsamoro

11 July 2024 CEMS

The displacement of thousands due to clan feuding, extremist violence, and random shooting incidents characterized the month of May 2024 in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Violence continued to disrupt lives in the conflict to peace transition, even as the BARMM populace set their sights on the first Bangsamoro parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2025.

Scorching heat and surging violence leave trails of death and displacement in mainland Mindanao

27 May 2024 CEMS

Scorching heat and a surge in violence since the start of the year has triggered an unprecedented rise in deaths and displacement in the Bangsamoro region as it heads towards regional elections in 2025. A state of calamity has been declared as temperatures rise of around 40 degrees Celsius across the region, compounding tensions from intensifying horizontal conflict.

Peaceful Plebiscite Beckons Hope for New Citizens of the BARMM

13 April 2024 CEMS

A quiet and peaceful exercise in democracy during the plebiscite for local statehood in the Bangsamoro’s special geographic areas (SGA) stood in sharp contrast with the bloody and violent elections of 2023.

No respite in violence in the Bangsamoro (January 2024)

31 January 2024 CEMS

There has been no respite in violence in the Bangsamoro following the bloodiest elections recorded in the last decade during the October 2023 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections. Extremist violence and violent clan feuds would join election-related conflict as bombings, firefights, and targeted killings and ambushes escalate.

Violence reigns in mainland Bangsamoro elections (Post-election brief, October 2023)

31 October 2023 CEMS

Conflict data shows that the 2023 Barangay and SK elections turned out to be the bloodiest election in the Bangsamoro region in the past decade, with incidents of violence spread out across the mainland.

Dissatisfaction and insecurity fuels polarization and violence (Pre-election brief, October 2023)

05 October 2023 CEMS

Mounting violence from horizontal conflict as the country heads towards village-level polls in October 2023 has placed local government and national security officials on edge.

Internal Ruptures within the Bangsamoro (February 2022)

17 February 2022 CEMS

The run-up to the 2022 elections has seen a remarkable escalation in violence between and among actors least expected to be the source of uncertainty, instability, and crisis in a region transitioning from conflict to peace. The rupture is occurring within the ranks of armed groups that have entered into peace agreements with the government but not with their rivals.

The lay of the land: Viral violence and the threat of a wider war (April & May 2020)

24 June 2020 CEMS

As Ramadhan ended and the government eased its lockdown measures, violent conflict has unprecedentedly surged in the Bangsamoro. These reveal the changes in the balance of economic and political power between political groups and alliances at various levels, as well as the broader shift in the risks and threats that newly emerging violent actors bring.

Special CEMS Bulletin on COVID-19 and Conflict (1 February – 17 April 2020)

27 April 2020 CEMS

Three sources of fragility have been mainstays in the Bangsamoro prior to the COVID-19 pandemic — 1) the continued presence of rival armed groups, 2) persistence of rival systems of property rights, 3) presence of shadow and informal markets. This bulletin tackles what can be done to ensure that the pandemic response will not exacerbate existing conflict dynamics.

Inauspicious start to the year (January 2020)

22 April 2020 CEMS

As martial law ended at the close of 2019, the national government said Proclamation No. 55, which declared a state of national emergency, remains in effect. However, reports indicated that violence had persisted in January. Amidst all of this, local government officials sought to preserve the order by continuing curfews and banning the carrying of firearms in public.