Barangay exec, wife killed in Maguindanao del Norte ambush

COTABATO CITY— Gunmen killed a barangay chairman and his wife in an ambush  in Barangay Bulibod in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte that caused panic among villagers as burst of automatic gunfire reverberated through the scene late Sunday.

Citing an initial report from the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Monday that Esmael Latip Mustapha, incumbent chairman of Barangay Bulibod, and his spouse, Rahima, both died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

The victims were walking together on their way home to an interior area in Barangay Bulibod from a village nearby when gunmen positioned along the route shot them with assault rifles.

Tanggawonh said personnel of the Sultan Kudarat municipal police, under Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, and intelligence agents of PRO-9 and the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office are trying to identify the gunmen behind the deadly ambush for them to be prosecuted for the atrocity.

Constituents of Mustapha told reporters that he and his immediate relatives were not involved in any "rido," meaning clan war in most Moro vernaculars, and that they knew him as a friendly person, cordial to residents of Barangay Bulibod