Maguindanao del Sur map. INQUIRER FILES
TACURONG CITY, SULTAN KUDARAT—Violence continued to rear its ugly head in Maguindanao, with the latest gun attack claiming the lives of a wife of the soldier-escort of the mayor of Rajah Buayan town, her 3-month old child and their driver.
Harrah Utto Lumenda Mabalo, her baby girl and the minivan driver Nunokan Manalindo, all residents of Rajah Buayan, were heading home from Tacurong City when waylaid by their attackers along the national highway of Barangay Mileb in the town at 4 p.m. on Thursday, said Police Lt. Argie Eyana, chief of the Rajah Buayan municipal police.
READ: 3 persons, including 3-month-old baby, killed in Maguindanao ambush
Rajah Buayan Mayor Bai Maruja Ampatuan Mastura said the ambush could be related to the elections’ next year but did not elaborate.
The mayor said Bai Kong Lumenda Utto, a relative of Mabalo who survived the ambush, recounted to him that she noticed unidentified men on board a minivan and other men on board two motorcycles tailing them from Tacurong City.
“It could be election related, ” Mastura said. “I am sad that it happened to the victims, especially the child.”
Police were looking at “rido” or personal grudge as possible motives. “But the information we gathered showed that the victim had no known enemies,” Eyana told the Inquirer.
“I have no idea of the real motive, the police are still investigating, but my personal view is it could be related to the coming elections,” the mayor said.
Mastura, who is seeking reelection in Rajah Muda town, is being challenged by former mayor Jack Ampatuan. Both Mastura and Ampatuan are distant relatives of Mabalo, according to Eyana.
A spate of gun attacks targeting aspirants for political posts in next years’ elections and in some cases, election officers, has been noted in different areas in the Mindanao, particularly in the Bangsamoro and central and northern Mindanao, after the filing of certificates of candidacy (COC) in October this year of those running for seats in next year’s midterm elections and filing of COCs for those running for parliament seats in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on Nov. 9.
On Dec. 7, an aspirant for vice mayor in Malabang, Lanao del Sur, and two others were injured while their two retired police companions were killed in an ambush along a dirt road of Barangay Paigoay Coda of Marogong town. Vice mayor aspirant Ramil Bao, however, survived the ambush along with two companions but their retired police companions were killed.
On Nov. 25, Mark Orlando Vallecer II, an acting election officer of Nunungan town in Lanao del Norte, was shot dead in Salvador town of the province.
On Nov. 23, or two days before Vallecer’s attack, an aspirant for governor in Sarangani province survived a gun attack while an election officer of a town in Sultan Kudarat was shot dead barely minutes from each other.
Lawyer Gladden Lim, 48, a businessman and aspiring candidate for governor in Sarangani, survived the Nov. 23 gun attack inside a church compound in General Santos City at 6:20 p.m.
At around 6 p.m. on the same day in nearby President Quirino town of Sultan Kudarat, John Nico Pandoy, the assistant election officer of Isulan, Sultan Kudarat, but detailed as acting election officer of President Quirino, was killed by motorcycle-riding men along the national highway of President Quirino.
On Nov. 18, vice mayor aspirant Jose Osorio of Tantangan town in South Cotabato was found by relatives in a pool of blood inside his home at 5:50 a.m. —INQUIRER MINDANAO BUREAU INQ