Cotabato Peace Advocates Rap Comelec: Unresolved poll cases blamed for hostilities

COTABATO CITY — Peace advocates in Central Mindanao are blaming what they describe as "turtle-paced" litigation by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) of electoral cases involving influential Muslim families in Maguindanao, for the spate of hostilities in this city, now a "fighting arena" of the feuding political clans.

Many Maguindanao clans are locked in electoral squabbles which, local peace advocates believe, may only end if the Comelec will speedily resolve the cases.

"As long as the cases remain unresolved, the tension and animosity among these families will remain high and they will certainly clash whenever they see each other anywhere in the province and in this city," said a 50-year-old Muslim imam (priest) in Parang, a coastal town in Maguindanao.

Parang itself has had no duly elected mayor since last year’s May 11 polls due to election controversies the Comelec central office has yet to resolve.

"And we are now tired of prodding all the (officials) of the Comelec to act on the problem. We really don’t know why, until now, they cannot act on it," lamented a Muslim copra trader in the Parang poblacion (town proper).

Last week, a policeman was killed and five others were wounded in a fierce gunbattle at a residential area here, said to be linked to the mayoral squabble in Matanog, Maguindanao.

The incident was preceded by the raid by heavily armed men on the residence here of Kabuntalan Mayor Salipongan Dagloc, which resulted in the death of the mayor’s housemaid and wounding of his son Sebastian.

Dagloc blamed a political rival who has protested his proclamation as Kabuntalan’s mayor-elect, for the raid. An electoral protest is pending with the Comelec.

Police and military records show that since 1998, a total of 67 people, mostly identified with Maguindanao politicians, have been killed by suspected hired killers here and in nearly towns.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema will convene the City Peace and Order Council tomorrow to formulate measures to stave off armed confrontations among warring Maguindanao political factions here.