By Edwin Fernandez
TACURONG CITY, Sultan Kudarat – A candidate for the village council of Pandag, Maguindanao del Sur, was killed in an ambush Tuesday afternoon in President Quirino town of this province.
In a report Wednesday, Maj. Davis Dulawan, President Quirino town police chief, said pursuit operations are ongoing against two gunmen on a motorbike who carried out the attack.
The victim, identified as Tayan Mamalinta, 50, was driving his motorbike along the national highway of the town when ambushed by riding-in tandem gunmen around 3 p.m.
The attackers, who remain unidentified, sped off in the interiors of the town following the incident.
Police investigators are also trying to determine if the attack was triggered by a personal grudge or related to next month’s Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).
Mamalinta, head of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), the political arm of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is seeking a seat in the village council of Barangay Pandag Poblacion, Pandag town, Maguindanao del Sur.
Pandag is among the towns in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) classified by the police regional office as under the “areas of grave concern” (red code) for the Oct. 30 BSKE.
Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, BARMM police regional director, said 32 towns and 63 villages of the Special Geographic Area (SGA) in North Cotabato have been classified as “areas of grave concern” in the region.
As of Sept. 11, 22 election-related violence have been recorded in BARMM since the August 28 filing of certificates of candidacy.
During the same period, police also arrested 11 persons for violation of the election gun ban across the region. (PNA)
