Cotabato poll exec escapes bomb attack

COTABATO CITY – Two motorcycle-riding suspects hurled yesterday a fragmentation grenade at the front yard of the house of the city election officer here.

The grenade failed to explode and was safely deactivated by operatives of the Army ordnance unit.

Arlan Mangelen, who became the city election officer since late last year, said he had been receiving death threats through anonymous letters and text messages prior to the failed bombing.

Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane, Cotabato City police chief, said the fragmentation grenade hurled at the yard of Mangelen failed to explode because the device’s blasting mechanism malfunctioned.

Dangane said they have provided Mangelen with additional security escorts to prevent possible attempts on his life.

Investigators theorized that the supposed bombing could be work-related.

The attempt on Mangelen’s life happened three weeks after the assassination of Commission on Elections (Comelec) legal officer Alioden Dalaig in front of the Hyatt Hotel in Manila.

A day before Dalaig’s death, Cavite Comelec provincial officer Joseph Anthony del Rosario was also gunned down in the same cold-blooded fashion while drinking with neighbors in a subdivision in General Trias, Cavite.

On that same day, a Come­lec official of Calanogas town in Lanao del Sur and his wife were forcibly taken at gunpoint after attending a hearing in nearby Malabang town.

Police authorities and the National Bureau of Investigation have offered to detail added security to Comelec officials in the wake of the incidents.