Poll officer of Maguindanao town, son killed in ambush

COTABATO CITY – Suspected partisans ambushed and killed a municipal election officer and his son in front of the town hall of Buluan, Maguindanao yesterday.

Lawyer Clarita Callar, Region 12 director of the Commission on Elections, identified her slain subordinate as Hadji Panga Bernan, election officer of Datu Paglas, a vote-rich town in the second district of Maguindanao.

Callar said Bernan and his son, Jonathan, were on their way to Tacurong City from Datu Paglas when their vehicle was peppered with bullets just meters away from the municipal building of Buluan town, killing the two instantly.

Callar said they still had no any information on the possible motive behind the ambush and the identities of its perpetrators.

Senior Superintendent Omar Ali, information director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police, said regional police director Senior Superintendent Akmad Omar has dispatched intelligence operatives to Buluan and Datu Paglas towns to go after the Bernans’ killers.

The elder Bernan is the brother of lawyer Ali Bernan, former member of the ARMM Regional Legislative Assembly.

Eleven people in Maguindanao alone have been killed while more than a dozen others have been wounded in continuing election-related hostilities since the campaign period started last April 1.

The Buluan incident was preceded by the killing over the weekend of Mangorak Didao, campaign manager of the Lakas-NUCD in Barira, a hinterland town in Maguindanao, by a campaigner of a rival party.

The spate of violence in Maguindanao has prompted the provincial folk to ask the Comelec to place known hostile towns in the province under its control.