Blast injures 4 in Cotabato City

DAVAO CITY – Police were preparing the appropriate charges to be filed against Davao del Sur first district Rep. Claude Bautista and four of his bodyguards for last Wednesday’s killing of a mayoralty candidate and his son in Malita town.

Chief Superintendent Andres Caro, Southern Mindanao police director, said a special task force was still determining the exact charges to be filed in connection with the killing of Malita mayoral bet Isidro Sarmiento and his son, Danilo.

“We have to be exact with the charges that we shall file. That’s why the results of the investigation of Task Force Sarmiento shall determine what charges shall be filed,” Caro said.

Aside from the regional police command, the inter-agency task force also involves the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

“The charges will really depend on the findings of the scene-of-the-crime investigators as well as the testimonies of witnesses,” Caro said.

Caro clarified that Bautista has yet to submit himself to a paraffin test. Similar tests had been done on the victims.

The NBI-Southeastern Mindanao office reportedly has in its custody a witness who could pinpoint Bautista as the one who shot the Sarmientos, not one of his bodyguards as he earlier had claimed.

Bautista, who ran for Davao del Sur governor, told The STAR that he was ready to submit himself to any investigation.

“My conscience is clear. I did not kill them. I am ready to meet anyone on the matter,” he said in a phone interview.

The shooting erupted when Bautista went to the Sarmientos’ residence last Wednesday afternoon after he had received reports that Sarmiento, the rival of Bautista’s brother, incumbent Gov. Benjamin Bautista Jr., in the Malita mayoral race, forcibly took election returns from the canvassing at the municipal hall.

Just as he was confronting the young Sarmiento, the congressman said the elder Sarmiento went out of their house, brandishing a gun and firing at him.

Bautista said the situation forced his bodyguard, a certain Tito Alipaopao, to fire at the Sarmientos in an effort to protect him.

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who heads the Regional Peace and Order Council, said he would not meddle in the Malita incident unless the Commission on Elections asks him.

If he had his way, Duterte said he would impose a total gun ban in Malita to ease the tension arising from the Sarmientos’ killing.