Ex-board member, kin gunned down

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A former Maguindanao provincial board member and his nephew were killed in an ambush in nearby Parang, Maguindanao yesterday.

Inspector Wilfredo Sanquin, Parang police chief, said Raul Tomawis and his nephew, Sandiale Tomawis, died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

Tomawis ran but lost in the 1997 vice gubernatorial race in the now defunct Shariff Kabunsuan province that supposedly covered all of the 11 towns in the first district of Maguindanao.

In 2009, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the creation of the Shariff Kabunsuan province by the Regional Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, resulting in its abolition.

The victims were on their way to the Parang town proper on board their vehicle when men on a black Toyota pick-up truck and a tinted van overtook and, as they got close, opened fire with M-16 and M-14 assault rifles.

Sanquin said probers were still trying to determine if the Tomawises were involved in a clan war.