Candidate, brother killed in Lanao del Sur ambush

COTABATO CITY — Gunmen killed a councilor candidate and his sibling, an incumbent barangay chairman, while they were on their way to a polling site in Bayang, Lanao del Sur, on the morning of Monday, May 12.

The ambush victims, Afganie Balt Taha, a councilor candidate for Bayang, and his brother Walid, the barangay chairman of Sumbag, were members of a prominent Maranao clan with elders involved in longstanding political feuds with other politicians in Lanao del Sur.

Officials of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters that the victims were on their way to a pooling precinct at the Mauyag Papandayan National High School in Barangay Rinabor in Bayang when they were attacked by gunmen positioned along the route. 

They were both declared dead on arrival at a hospital where policemen and barangay officials who responded to the incident brought them for treatment. 

Relatives of the Taha siblings told reporters they are convinced the attack that killed the two was carried out by political rivals.