Ex-Kudarat mayor, 3 aides die in ambush

COTABATO CITY – A former mayor of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat and his three aides were killed in an ambush by ski mask-wearing men here Thursday night.

The killing of Datu Kling Daud, owner of a fleet of small passenger and cargo vessels plying the Paga—dian-Cotabato and Cotabato-Sultan Kudarat routes, was the third violent incident involving politicians in this city in recent months.

Senior Superintendent Sangacala Dampac, city police director, said Daud and his three aides were on their way home to the Espino residential area here, on board a blue Mitsubishi car, when the ambushers, armed with M-16 and M-14 assault rifles, opened fire.

Daud’s bodyguards PO1 Ab—dulsajid Mohamad and militiaman Rodrigo Abugatal and driver Theng Dicaya were killed in the initial hail of bullets.

Dampac recalled that Daud earlier told him that he had been receiving death threats and promised to give more details when they would meet again.

Probers, he said, still have no solid clues on who could be behind the ambush and their motives.

Daud was mayor of Palimbang, a coastal town in Sultan Kudarat, from 1998 to 2001. He was defeated by Samrod Mamansual in last year’s mayoral elections.

His ambush was preceded by separate clashes here between two political factions from Kabuntalan, Maguindanao and the feuding Imam and Macapeges clans of Matanog, also in Maguindanao. — With Roel Pareño, AFP