Newly-elected councilor dead in Cotabato highland town ambush

COTABATO CITY — Gunmen killed a newly-elected barangay councilman in an interior area in Antipas town in Cotabato province on Tuesday morning.

The Antipas Municipal Police Station, in a report to Col. Harold Ramos, Cotabato provincial police director, identified the fatality as Edmar Pineda Perero, known in the municipality as a friendly and a polite person.

Perero was elected kagawad in Barangay Dolores in Antipas during the October 30 synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

The Antipas MPS said he was driving his own tricycle, on his way home from the town center in Antipas, when he was attacked by gunmen along the route.

Perero, who was not fatally wounded in the initial shots fired by his attackers, tried to run away towards a roadside hill where he eventually slumped and passed out.

Ramos said that he has directed the investigators in the Antipas MPS and intelligence agents under him to enlist the help of local officials in identifying the killers of Perero, who had escaped even before responding policemen and barangay tanods could reach the scene.