Gunmen kill Lanao del Sur town councilor, leave 4 wounded

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines — A municipal councilor was killed while four others were wounded when gunmen attacked on Saturday a residential compound owned by a former mayor in Balabagan town.

Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares, director of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Sunday that personnel of the Balabagan municipal police are now searching for the killers of Nasif Basil, a member of the Sangguniang Bayan in Kapatagan, Lanao del Sur.

Basil was at the residence of former Mayor Amer Sampiano in the town proper of Balabagan when unidentified men arrived and opened fire with assault rifles, killing him on the spot.

Four others, Alvin Sampiano, Bibih Disalongan, Topah Disalongan, and Bensoud Mangigin, were wounded in the incident and were brought to a hospital.

The suspects fled immediately using a blue Toyota FX parked nearby.

Mijares said investigators from the Balabagan local police and the Lanao del Sur provincial police office are now trying to determine who the culprits were and their exact motive for the attack.

Most of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur are locked in deadly clan feuds involving big families that keep arsenals of weapons as status symbols and to perpetuate political power.

The provinces of Lanao del Sur and Sulu account for most number of the clan wars that have yet to be settled in the autonomous region, which also covers Maguindanao and the islands of Basilan and Tawi-Tawi.

Mijares said the slain councilor from Kapatagan, about four towns away, was only a visitor of Sampiano, a scion of a big political clan in the seaside town in the second district of Lanao del Sur.

Brig. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division said intelligence agents of units under the 603rd Infantry Brigade, which covers Balabagan and several other towns in Lanao del Sur, are now helping the police investigate the killing.