Basilan reelectionist barangay chair now detained after murder of rival

MAGUINDANAO --- The police is now in custody of an incumbent barangay chairman in Basilan implicated in the brutal killing Saturday night of a rival in the May 14 polls and four others.Hermie Asao, chairman of Barangay Kamamburingan in Ungkaya Pukan, Basilan was nabbed after a 13-hour search by combined units of the police and the Army’s 104thBrigade.Witnesses have tagged him as leader of no fewer than 10 men who killed the former barangay chairman of Kamamburingan, Usang Alibasa, and four followers named Asani, Andatun, Jamalun, and Matindo.Alibasa was to contest the reelection bid of Asao, incumbent chairman of Kamamburingan, during the May 14 synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.Alibasa was former chairman of the same barangay, according to sources from the Basilan provincial government.Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in Parang, Maguindanao said Monday Asao and his men surrounded a house where the victims were discussing campaign plans, ordered them to come out and shot them with assault rifles.Probers said Asao hacked with a bolo the cadavers of the victims and even tried to decapitate one of them but balked when he and his companionssensed that people in houses nearby have started coming out to check on the gunshots that reverberated through the village.Mijares said he is thankful to soldiers from units of the 104thBrigade who helped the local police chase Asao after the carnage.Mijares said investigators in the Ungkaya Pukan municipal police are now building an air-tight case against the detained Asao with the help of the relatives of the victims and several witnesses.The cohorts of Asao are still at large.Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Army’s 104thBrigade, said military intelligence agents are now helping the police locate all of them.