Bloody incidents rock BARMM polls in Cotabato City
COTABATO CITY — The Commission on Elections had placed all 37 barangays in Cotabato City under its control due to deadly incidents late Sunday, September 13, and just as polling precincts opened early Monday, September 14, for the Bangsamoro parliamentary electoral exercise.
Cotabato City is the capital of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, whose territory encompasses the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, as well as two other cities, Lamitan and Marawi.
Regional officials of the Comelec in BARMM and their superior, Chairman George Erwin Garcia, were quoted in radio reports in Cotabato City on Monday morning as saying that Maluso town in Basilan was also placed under their direct control due to violent incidents in the area related to the Bangsamoro parliamentary polls.
Three Moro men, Caril Abdul Lumidsog, his brother, Bain Abdul Lumidsog, and Idar Kasan Andog were killed in an attack by gunmen near the premises of the Datu Usman Mampen Elementary School in Barangay Bagua 2 in Cotabato City shortly before midnight Sunday.
Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson for the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and Cotabato City Police Office director Col. Jibin Bongcayao separately told reporters early Monday that the incident left 15 other villagers wounded.
The barangay chairman of Bagua 2, Fahad Singh, told reporters the three slain men and the 15 others who sustained gunshot wounds were his companions.
He said they were checking, along with volunteer community watchmen, reports of gunmen near the campus of the Datu Usman Mampen Elementary School in Barangay Bagua 2 when the group, armed with assault rifles, opened fire, killing the Lumidsog brothers and Andog .
Singh’s wounded companions were immediately brought by emergency responders to different hospitals for treatment.
The incident was preceded about two hours earlier by a powerful explosion that ripped through a residential area in Purok Amirol in Mother Barangay Kalanganan, Cotabato City, resulting in the death of Zainodin Sapal Macabuat.
Barangay officials said there were talks circulating in the villages under their jurisdiction suggesting that Macabuat was killed in the accidental explosion of a fragmentation grenade he was reportedly planning to bring somewhere. He sustained serious shrapnel wounds to his torso that caused his death.
Two men also identified with a political party died from gunshot wounds sustained in a shootout early Monday at the Cotabato City Central Elementary School that left one of their companions and an on-duty policeman wounded. The policeman was hit by a bullet in his right leg and is now confined to a hospital.
Personnel of the Cotabato City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office told reporters that the two men died in a hospital where all four were taken for treatment.
Police units under PRO-BAR and from Regions 11 and 12, personnel of the 6th Marine Battalion of the Navy’s 1st Marine Brigade and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division jointly secured all polling sites in Cotabato City. The city is close to Maguindanao del Norte’s Sultan Kudarat and Datu Odin Sinsuat towns, where the conduct of the BARMM parliamentary elections was orderly and peaceful.
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