Rido’ led to deadly Lamitan City ambush

COTABATO CITY - Officials are scrambling to resolve a “rido” involving a barangay chairman who survived an ambush in Lamitan City, Basilan Monday that left his driver dead and hurt three others, among them an innocent public school teacher.

Rido is a generic term for clan war in most southern Mindanao dialects.

The Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region here said in a statement Tuesday that probers are certain it was Robert Jalal, barangay chairman of Saimbangon in Lamitan City, who was the target of the attack that resulted in the death of his driver, Omar Akirin. 

Local leaders and senior officials of PRO-BAR and the Basilan Provincial Police Office told reporters Jalal’s family is locked in a rido with another group in their barangay, where both sides had figured in hostilities early on. 

Jalal and two companions, Akil Nasala and Muslimin Sali, sustained superficial gunshot wounds in different parts of their bodies, according to Lt. Col. Arlan Delumpines, chief of the Lamitan City Police Station. 

Akirin, their driver, died instantly from multiple bullet wounds, causing their vehicle to plunge into the deep side of the highway. 

In a report to PRO-BAR, Delumpines, said a teacher, Roel Infante, of the Maloong Elementary School, was wounded in the crossfire.

Infante, who sustained a bullet wound in his right leg, was passing by when gunmen attacked Jalal and his companions, according to Delumpines. 

Provincial officials told reporters Tuesday members of the multi-sector Lamitan City Peace and Order Council led by Mayor Roderick Furigay and the administration of Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman have embarked on backchannel efforts to put closure to the rido involving the clan of Jalal and another in Barangay Saimbangon.