Kidapawan cops pressured amid 17 unresolved murders in H1

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines - A city councilor on Thursday asked the police to look into an apparent breakdown of law and order in Kidapawan City following the still unsolved murders, one after another, of 17 people from January to June this year.

“This is already very alarming,” Councilor Francis Palmones said in a privilege speech.

Palmones urged authorities to maximize their efforts of addressing the security problems now besetting Kidapawan City, a component city of Region 12.

The city is more than a hundred kilometers southwest of Cotabato City, touted as the region’s crime capital, where more than 300 people have been killed by suspected guns-for-hire since 2010.

Cotabato City is also a known major transshipment point for shabu, from where traffickers distribute millions worth of illegal drugs to nearby towns in Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao on a regular basis.

Palmones said while most of the victims in the wanton killings in Kidapawan City have shady personalities and were suspected of being involved in criminal activities, the police still ought to probe on their deaths.

“No one has the authority to kill them just like that,” Palmones said.

He said the spate of still unsolved killings has affected the investment climate of Kidapawan City.

Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evangelista, chair of the city’s inter-agency peace and order council, said he himself is opposed to extra-judicial killings.

He said he has been receiving persistent feedback from barangay folks that the killings were related to the intense rivalries among local drug syndicates.