CoC filing clash kills 1, wounds 4 in Shariff Aguak

COTABATO CITY — Local officials have tightened security in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao del Sur after a community watchman was killed while four others were hurt in a clash on Tuesday between residents and group of a supposed vice mayoral candidate who failed to file candidacy due to legal constraints.

Lt. Col. Regie G. Albellera, chief of the Shariff Aguak Municipal Police, and officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, confirmed on Wednesday that a member of a Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team, who was hurt in the incident, died at a hospital at past 7 p.m., Tuesday.

Local officials told reporters the incident left Col. Montassir Eskak of the 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company of the Maguindanao Provincial Police Office, a resident of Shariff Aguak, and two others in the group that provoked the hostilities, wounded.

Police and military officials said the incident erupted after the municipal office of the Commission on Elections failed to approve the candidacy for vice-mayor of a Maguindanaon man who only showed a certificate of nomination and acceptance from a political party, which cannot be used as a basis for the filing of his certificate of candidacy.

The vice mayoral aspirant, whose group figured in the hostilities, had eventually filed a CoC at the Comelec regional office in Cotabato City, according to PRO-BAR officials. — John Felix M. Unson