Military counts 3 election-related killings in Lanao Sur
AP FILE PHOTO
MARAWI CITY, Philippines – The Army has listed at least three killings in Lanao del Sur related to the October 28 barangay (village) elections.
Colonel Glen Macasero, commander of the 103rd Infantry Brigade, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Friday that the latest election–related violence in the province took place on Thursday, when re-electionist chairman Hadji Mohammad Tomimbang of Barangay Ririk in the municipality of Taraka was shot dead by a lone assailant.
He said Tomimbang was on his way to a mosque in the neighboring barangay of Sambolawan for the early morning prayer when he was shot.
Macasero said that on October 12, an aspirant for the position of chairman in Barangay Oriental Beta in Lumba Caunayan town was shot dead. He did not identify neither victim nor attacker.
On Oct. 11, Salman Abdulrahman, the re-electionist chair of Barangay Bansayan in Piagapo town was also killed during an ambush by still unidentified gunmen, he said.
Abdulrahman, Macasero said, had just filed his certificate of candidacy and was on his way home with two others when the pick-up truck he was riding was fired upon by the perpetrators, using automatic rifles.
The village official’s two companions were wounded in the attack, he said.
Macasero said while the three incidents were confirmed to be election-related, Wednesday’s gun fight at the wedding of a Maranao couple in Barangay Lige that claimed the lives of three people and wounded several others, was determined to be the off-shoot of a family feud.
He said armed members of the Diamla-Dimaapao and the Tuba-Bilao clans unexpectedly met at the wedding and immediately opened fire on each other. Three gunmen died there and then, he added.
Macasero said responding members of the 51st Infantry Battalion engaged another group, suspected to be part of one of the feuding clans, and killed two gunmen.
“Three other armed men were also captured during the firefight and our soldiers recovered three M-16 rifles,” he said.
Macasero said the police have filed charges against those involved in the wedding incident.
He said because politics was heating up in Lanao del Sur as the elections draw near, the military has deployed an additional battalion in the province.
Macasero said the military was also trying to bring political aspirants to peace dialogues and possible signing of covenants on non-use of violence.
In Maguindanao, Moro rebels said to be supportive of a still unidentified politician stormed two villages in Pagalungan town and scared away residents as they strafed houses while searching for the most likely rival of their candidate on Thursday.
Captain Anthony Bulao, spokesperson of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade, said members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front under Buto Sanday and two other rebel commanders descended on the villages of Bagoinged and Kudal as the filing of COCs for the barangay elections was coming to a close. The MILF guerrillas were reported to be supporters of a candidate and were looking for his opponent.
Bulao said some 300 villagers fled but no one was reported hurt in the incident.
He said the military has sent peacekeeping forces to the two villages and has informed the joint ceasefire committees about the incident for possible intervention so that the situation would not escalate.
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