Killings of Mindanao poll officials possibly 'work-related' — police

COTABATO CITY — Police investigators are convinced the separate gun attacks in two Mindanao provinces in just three days that left two municipal election officers dead were both work-related and possibly involved political warlords.

Mark Orlando Vallecer, municipal election officer of Nunungan town in Lanao del Norte was driving his car in Barangay Curva Miagqo in Salvador town in the province when he was attacked by gunmen last Monday, November 25, killing him instantly.

Officials of the Lanao del Norte Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office 10 said on Tuesday, November 26, that Vallecer’s assailants had immediately escaped using getaway motorcycles. 

Relatives of Vallecer, police investigators and local officials who responded to the incident told probers that they are certain the ambush that resulted in his death was related to his being municipal election officer of Nunungan, a politically troubled town in Lanao del Norte.

Vallecer was killed just three days after gunmen shot dead John Nico Allan Pandoy, assistant election officer of Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat, in a daring daytime ambush in President Quirino town in the province. 

He was riding his motorcycle on his way home from their office when he was attacked by gunmen while motoring through a stretch of a highway in Barangay Poblacion in President Quirino, not too distant from Isulan, the capital town of Sultan Kudarat.

Pandoy died from multiple bullet wounds he sustained in the attack, whose perpetrators had also immediately fled using a getaway vehicle.

Personnel of the President Quirino Municipal Police Station, officials of units of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in Sultan Kudarat and the Police Regional Office-12 said the atrocity was apparently related to Pandoy’s work as assistant election officer of Isulan. 

Pandoy had reportedly received death threats before he was killed by gunmen on Friday last week.

Employees of the Commission on Elections in Lanao del Norte and in Sultan Kudarat provinces in Regions 10 and 12, respectively, have condemned the separate attacks that left Vallecer and Pandoy dead and urged the police to identify their killers for immediate prosecution.