Poll officer held captive

ZAMBOANGA CITY — An officer of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was seized in a remote village in Lanao del Sur Wednesday morning and was freed 10 hours later without ransom after local officials negotiated his release, the military said.

Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko, chief of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command, said 10 armed men snatched election officer Casan Laguindab at about 7:30 a.m. in Barangay Piksan, Calanugas town.

Kyamko said the intervention of Calanugas officials and mounting police and military pressure resulted in Laguindab’s release at about 7:30 a.m.

Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero, the Armed Forces’ chief information officer, said there was no feedback on the motive behind the abduction.

Since last Friday, the Comelec has been conducting a voters’ registration in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), of which Lanao del Sur is a component province.

The computerized voters’ list-up was supposed to end the other day, but the Comelec extended it up to Aug 5.

Last Tuesday, another election officer, Mohammad Magsaysay, of Sultan sa Barongis, Maguindanao, and a data encoder, Alibai Lumenda, were wounded in an ambush.

Meanwhile, an encounter nearly erupted between two armed political factions who were fighting over whose supporters could register first in a polling precinct in Matanog, Maguindanao the other day.

The incident forced hundreds of registrants to flee, fearing that violence might break out between the supporters of Hadji Nasser Imam and Suharto Ibay, Matanog’s mayor and vice mayor, respectively.

Police said the prompt intervention of religious leaders and Comelec officials prevented what could have been a bloodbath between the two groups.

Chief Inspector Danilo Bacas, spokesman of the ARMM police, said Chief Superintendent Acmad Omar, regional police director, has deployed more policemen in polling precincts in Matanog to prevent confrontations between the two factions.

Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. told Catholic radio station dxMS in Cotabato City yesterday that the poll body has been very strict in preventing outsiders from taking part in the voters’ registration in Maguindanao’s 26 towns.

The ARMM covers Marawi City and the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan. — With John Unson