Ambush incidents rock Cotabato City, Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY --- A popular lawyer survived an ambush here Thursday but a campaigner of the political party of the Moro Islamic Liberation working for a mayoral candidate attacked in a separate incident the same day was not as lucky.

Ronald Torres, a staunch indigenous people and Moro rights advocate, was unscathed in Thursday’s attack here by men who did not know he was in a bullet-proof Toyota Land Cruiser that they shot with assault rifles.

The lawyer Torres was on his way home from work when the culprits opened fire at his vehicle while maneuvering through a stretch of the busy Santos Street here.

Torres told reporters he is convinced that the attempt to kill him was work-related. He did not elaborate, however.

The white vehicle of Torres, bearing license plates NFV 6578, got hit with more than 20 rounds of 5.56 caliber metal-jacketed rifle ammunition but did not pierce through, stopped by protective Kevlar interior linings.

He was ambushed about five hours after two men gunned down Kasmin Angeles in the town proper of Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

Angeles was a campaigner and driver of a candidate for mayor in Ampatuan town of the MILF’s United Bangsamoro Justice Party, or UBJP.

Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo of the MILF-led Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Friday Angeles was a member of the UBJP.

The UBJP has candidates for elective posts in the municipal government of Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.

Angeles was riding a motorcycle when two men armed with .45 caliber pistols attacked him from behind while motoring through a street in the town proper of Ampatuan, killing him on the spot.

Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Maguindanao provincial police, said Angeles played a key role in securing, via backchannel talks, the March 30 surrender of 12 members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters from different barangays in Ampatuan and nearby towns.

The BIFF members together yielded to the police and the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division in a simple rite last March 30.

The BIFF, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has a reputation for attacking members who have returned to the fold of law and their relatives and those who had a hand in their surrender.

Bongcayao said probers are still trying to establish if Thursday’s fatal ambush of Angeles was politically-motivated, or could be related to his role in facilitating the surrender of 12 BIFF members recently.

Photo: The bullet-riddled sports utility vehicle of lawyer Ronald Torres who was ambushed on Thursday afternoon. (From DXMS)