Candao brod shot dead

COTABATO CITY — Motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead yesterday an older brother of former Maguindanao Gov. Zacaria Candao, the latest fatality in the seemingly unending saga of violence here and in surrounding towns. The killing took place amid the police and military’s imposition of a citywide ban on carrying of firearms here since last month as part of the effort to prevent vendetta killings and restrain lawless elements operating in the city.

Senior Superintendent Sangacala Dampac, city police director, said the victim, 64-year-old Abdulkadir Candao, popularly known here and in Maguindanao as Datu Peping, was driving his son to the Notre Dame University here when the suspects, on board a black motorcycle, overtook their Isuzu Highlander and opened fire with .45 caliber automatic, hitting him in the head.

Candao’s son, a grade school pupil, survived the attack unscathed. He told probers that the gunmen have been tailing them since they left their house, and when his father slowed down at an intersection just meters away from their school, the gunman overtook their vehicle and started shooting at the driver’s side of Candao’s vehicle.

Candao died on the spot while his killers, wearing helmets, managed to escape on board their motorcycle even before responding policemen could reach the scene.

Candao was security director of the office of the Regional Governor (ORG) in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao from 1990 to 1993, when his brother, Zacaria, a lawyer, was ARMM governor. He was a pioneer commander in the Moro National Liberation Front and commissioned as captain in the Philippine Army following his surrender to the government in the 1970s.

When his younger brother was elected governor of Maguindanao in 1995, Candao, became active in reconciling feuding families in the province as chief of the provincial civil security office.

The Candaos here said yesterday’s killing of their elder, who was a criminologist by profession, was carried out by professional killers. As a battle-hardened Moro guerilla, Candao was virtually difficult to neutralize if armed, according to his grieving relatives.

In other developments, officials of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao condemned yesterday’s brutal killing here of Datu Abdulkadir Candao, brother of former Maguindanao Gov. Datu Zacaria Candao.

ARMM Gov. Parouk Hussin, chairman of the regional peace and order council, said he has tasked the regional police, which has jurisdiction over the local police command to investigate extensively on the incident, determine the identities of the gunmen responsible for the victim’s death, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of law.