Maguindanao del Sur Barangay chairman dead, councilor wounded in IED attack

COTABATO CITY — A barangay chairman was killed while another was wounded in a powerful explosion in Shariff Saidona Mustapha, Maguindanao del Sur on Wednesday morning. 

The fatality, Datu Manot Silongan, chairman of Barangay Penditen in nearby Datu Salibo town in Maguindanao del Sur, died on the spot from injuries caused by the explosion.

The blast also hurt Salik Datua, a councilman in Barangay Ganta in Shariff Saydona Mustapha, who was immediately rushed to a hospital by responding police personnel and municipal emergency responders.

Col. Roel Rullan Sermese, Maguindanao del Sur provincial police director, said Wednesday there are indications that the bomb used in the attack was an improvised explosive device rigged with a blasting mechanism that can be detonated from a distance using a mobile phone.

The Shariff Saydona MPS, in an initial report to Sermese and Brig. Gen Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said Silongan and Penditen have just emerged from the barangay hall in Ganta and were proceeding to a nearby area when the roadside bomb, planted along their path, went off.

Investigators have an initial theory that Silongan could be the target of the roadside bombing, possibly related to the April 17 murder of his brother, Datu Salibo municipal councilor Demson Silongan, by gunmen right in the premises of their local government center.