2 civilian traffic enforcers in BARMM town shot dead

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Gunmen shot dead two known hardworking municipal traffic enforcers in a daring attack at a densely populated area in Malabang town in Lanao del Sur on Thursday, June 4.

Officials of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and Capt. Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters on Saturday that the victims, Samar Marohom and Jamael Talib, both residents of Barangay Curahab in Malabang, died from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

Salanguit and local executives said Marohom and Talib were on duty together, along a thoroughfare in Barangay Campo Muslim in Malabang, when motorcycle-riding men came close, pulled out .45 and 9 millimeter pistols and shot them repeatedly.

Salanguit said local executives and traditional Maranao community leaders are certain that the apparently premeditated murder of the duo is related to their being tough in enforcing traffic ordinances in Malabang, one of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Marohom and Talib were both declared dead on arrival by attending physicians at the Doctor Serapio Montañer Hospital in Malabang, where emergency responders brought them for treatment.

Municipal and barangay officials told reporters that the gunmen who killed the two traffic enforcers under their local government unit escaped immediately riding their motorcycle without a license plate.