MILF official employed in BARMM killed in gun attack

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Gunmen killed on Friday, February 7, an official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front employed as a municipal chief of the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Office.

Johnson Endil was washing his sports utility vehicle parked outside of their residential yard in Sitio Amanah in Barangay Inug-ug in Pikit, Cotabato when two men approached him from behind, opened fire and immediately scampered away.

Investigators in the Pikit Municipal Police Station and officials of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office told reporters on Saturday, February 8, that Endil was declared dead on arrival in a hospital where he was brought by emergency responders for treatment.

Endil was the MILF’s secretary for the Ligawasan Area, covering Moro communities around Central Mindanao's 220,000-hectare Ligasawan Delta,

He was also the municipal chief for Pikit of the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Office, an agency under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Pikit is in Cotabato province in Region 12, but has more than 20 barangays that are part of BARMM's core territory.

BARMM Transportation and Communications Minister Paisalin Pangandaman Tago and directors of different agencies under him have condemned the atrocity and urged witnesses to help the police identify the people behind it.

“We are saddened by the death of a co-worker in the Bangsamoro government. We are wishing for an immediate resolution of the incident,” Tago said in a text message to reporters on Saturday afternoon.

Senior MILF officials occupying high positions in different BARMM ministries told reporters that Endil was partly instrumental in resolving in recent years many deadly clan wars in Pikit and in nearby towns where the front has enclaves now recognized as peace zones by the national government.