2 Maguindanao barangay executives killed, 3 wounded in ambush

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao, Philippines – Two barangay officials were killed while three others were wounded when Moro rebels opened fire at a convoy of local leaders led by an Army battalion commander in Datu Saudi, Maguindanao Thursday night.

Lt. Col. Benedict Arevalo, commander of the Army’s 29th Infantry Battalion, survived the attack unscathed, but one of his escorts, Cpl. Jackson Martinez, was wounded in the cheek and was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Arevalo and his companions, mostly barangay officials seeking re-election, had just come from the signing of an election peace covenant in nearby Salibo town and were on their way to Barangay Salvo in Datu Saudi town when they were fired at with assault rifles and B-40 anti-tank rockets.

Two barangay officials on board a vehicle trailing the Army light truck carrying Arevalo and his men were killed in the initial gunfire.

The fatalities, Salik Talipasan Guimba and Nasser Mapangal Kalsuma, chairman and councilman, respectively, of Barangay Liab in Mamasapano town, died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Two passengers of other vehicles in the convoy sustained superficial wounds.

Arevalo and his men engaged the ambushers in 30-minute running gunbattle and managed to drive them away with the help of responding policemen and local officials from Datu Piang town.

Lt. Col. Benjamin Hao, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said villagers from adjoining communities confirmed that the ambushers were led by Mohiden Karialan, a key commander the MILF’s 105th Base Command.

“It was a very sad incident because they ambushed a convoy of barangay officials and soldiers who had just signed a covenant enjoining candidates for barangay positions in several towns in the second district of Maguindanao to abide by the Omnibus Election Code,” Hao said.

Hao said they would ask the government’s Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities to investigate the incident. – With Alexis Romero