MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Gunmen ambushed on Friday a municipal councilor in South Upi, just four days after a similar attack in the area that left a villager dead and seriously hurt three others.
Basit Kamid and his companions were on their way to the town center of South Upi, Maguindanao, when gunmen shot their vehicle with assault rifles while motoring through a farm-to-market road in Barangay Lamud in the municipality.
Kamid’s security escorts managed to return fire, preventing their ambushers from closing in.
Kamid, a member of the Sangguniang Bayan in South Upi, and his companions survived the attack unscathed.
The exchange of gunfire sent villagers running for their lives.
The Maguindanao provincial police and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division are still trying to establish if Friday’s ambush could be related to the attack on a convoy of local officials and relief workers in nearby Barangay Pandan in the same town four days before.
A villager was killed while three others were hurt in the incident.
South Upi Mayor Reynalbert Insular, who was in the convoy, said he is certain he was the target of the attack.
His vehicle was twice hit by a roadside bomb in the past two years.
Insular and other local officials and municipal relief workers were to return to the town center of South Upi from an outreach mission for conflict-stricken residents in Barangay Itaw when they were attacked.
Gunmen raided Barangay Itaw last December 31 and set 13 houses of poor ethnic Teduray families in the area, causing the displacement of more than 700 families.