COTABATO CITY — Local officials have tightened security in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao del Sur, after a community watchman was killed and six others were injured in a clash between residents and a group of a supposed vice mayoral candidate who was unable to file his candidacy due to legal issues on Tuesday, October 8.
Lt. Col. Regie Albellera, chief of the Shariff Aguak Municipal Police, and officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, confirmed on Wednesday that a member of a Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team, who was hurt in the incident, died at a hospital at past 7 p.m. Tuesday.
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Local officials told reporters the incident left Cpl.Montassir Eskak of the 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company of the Maguindanao Provincial Police Office and a resident of Shariff Aguak named Saddam Taguigaya and two others in the group that provoked the hostilities, wounded.
Police and military officials said that the incident erupted after the municipal office of the Commission on Elections failed to approve the candidacy for vice mayor of a Maguindanaon who only showed a certificate of nomination and acceptance from a political party,. The CONA cannot be used as a basis for the filing of his certificate of candidacy.
The vice mayoral aspirant, whose group figured in the hostilities, had eventually filed a COC at the Comelec regional office in Cotabato City, according to PRO-BAR officials.
Senior members of the Shariff Aguak Municipal Peace and Order Council and police officials also found out that the individual who was supposed to file his candidacy for Shariff Aguak vice mayor is wanted for high-profile criminal cases pending in different courts.
He was reportedly invited first for identity verification by the local police and eventually allowed to file a COC, but failed due to his lack of requisite documents, sparking trouble at the entrance to the Shariff Aguak municipal government compound along the Cotabato-Isulan Highway.
The Shariff Aguak municipal police force and PRO-BAR said in separate statements on Wednesday that more policemen have been deployed in potential flashpoint areas in the municipality after the bloody incident that went viral on Facebook.