The police identified the victim as Sangguniang Bayan member Bai Diana Mantawil Mokalid, 67, popularly known as “Tita ng Bayan.”
Initial police investigation disclosed that she collapsed while on her way to the house of Mayor Victor Samama to attend an assembly before their party will go to the Comelec office to file their respective certificates of candidacy (COC).
SB member Mokalid, according to witnesses, collapsed around 11:00am while on her way to the mayor’s office. She was immediately rushed to a hospital by partymates but she died along the way.
The time that she collapsed was recorded on video, it was learned. Mokalid, along with other candidates and supporters were walking heading to the mayor’s residence when she fell and collapsed.
Mokalid’s supporters were even chanting “Tita, Tita” while they all paraded around town before reaching the mayor’s residence, it was learned.
“Relatives and supporters rushed her to nearby Midsayap hospital but expired along the way,” Samama told newsmen.
Mokalid, reports said, should be the running mate of Mayor Victor Samama in the upcoming local and national elections in May next year.
A certain Emma Tahir Alim, the SB member’s avid supporter theorized that exhaution might have caused her to collapse.
But the immediate family has yet to release to the media the official cause of her death. – PNA
