Son-in-law of BARMM parliament candidate hurt in gun attack

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A son-in-law of a candidate for the Bangsamoro parliament and a villager were wounded in what could be a politically-motivated attack by motorcycle riding gunmen at Barangay Matibay in Lamitan City, Basilan on Friday night, September 11.

Basilan is one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which shall hold its first-ever parliamentary polls on Monday, September 14.

Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and officials of the Lamitan City Police Station, separately told reporters on Saturday that the wounded Halid Dompol Mujanil and Efren Efren Salahuddin Custodio were immediately brought by emergency responders to a hospital for treatment.

Local executives had told reporters that Mujanil was in the front yard of the residential compound in Barangay Matibay of his mother-in-law, Rima Hassan, a candidate for Lamitan City’s parliamentary seat, when he was shot by men riding motorcycles together.

The gunmen also opened fire at Custodio, then walking along the street just a few meters away, before they escaped using their motorcycles.

Hassan, a businesswoman, is aspiring for the parliamentary seat in Lamitan City as a candidate of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, one of the more than 10 regional political blocs permitted by the Commission on Elections to participate in BARMM’s first-ever regional electoral exercise on Monday

She and her party mates are certain she was the target of the gunmen who perpetrated the atrocity.

Barangay officials have positively identified one of the culprits, according to officials of different units of PRO-BAR in Basilan.

Top officials in Cotabato City of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, among them its spokesperson, the lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, a current member of the 80-seat BARMM parliament, had separately asked the Bangsamoro police command to put a speedy closure on the incident.