No clues yet on ambush-slay of municipal poll official

COTABATO CITY - Probers are still clueless on Monday’s fatal ambush in Lambayong, Sultan Kudarat of an election officer in a troubled town in Maguindanao del Sur province.

Haviv Macabangen Maindan, an ethnic Maguindanaon, municipal election officer of Sultan sa Barongis town in Maguindanao del Sur, died on the spot from bullet wounds when gunmen on motorcycles, positioned along a highway in Lambayong, shot his vehicle and immediately sped away.

Maidan’s silver Toyota Fortuner plunged into a roadside swamp when he lost control of the wheel after attackers had repeatedly shot him.

Brig. Gen. Jamili Macaraig, director of the Police Regional Office-12, told reporters Tuesday the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office and investigators in the Lambayong Municipal Police Station are together trying to identify the killers of Maindan.

Brig. Gen. John Guyguyon of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said officials and intelligence agents of the Maguindanao Provincial Police Office will help PRO-12 determine the identities of the culprits and their motive for killing Maindan.

Sultan sa Barongis, where Maindan is municipal election officer, is in Maguindanao del Sur, a component province of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, covering five provinces where most towns are election hotspots.

“Our investigators just need time to get to the bottom of this,” Macaraeg told reporters Tuesday.

Maguindanao’s provincial election director, lawyer Udtog Tago, said they will cooperate in the investigation on what is for them an apparent premeditated ambush that resulted in Maindan’s death.

He said personnel of the Commission on Elections in BARMM normally get “death threats” every after election.

“That’s part of our profession. We can’t please everybody,” Tago said.