Municipal councilor killed in gun attack

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Gunmen shot dead a Moro municipal councilor in an attack, in the presence of villagers, at a residential area in the town center of Paglat in Maguindanao del Sur on Wednesday morning, March 18.

Officials of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and local executives separately told reporters at noon Wednesday that Samoan Kitalok was talking to neighbors outside of their house in Barangay Poblacion in Paglat when men armed with pistols came close and shot him repeatedly, killing him instantly.

The pistol-wielding assailants of Kitalok immediately escaped using a black getaway Rusi motorcycle, according to barangay officials and investigators who responded to the incident.

Relatives and neighbors of Kitalok said they are convinced that the atrocity that left him dead was related to his active and overt participation in police law-enforcement activities in Paglat, one of the 24 towns in Maguindanao del Sur province in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

BARMM’s police director, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, has ordered officials of their units in Paglat and in nearby towns to seek help from local executives and traditional Moro datus in identifying the killers of Kitalok for prosecution.