Maguindanao del Sur vice mayor survives slay try
COTABATO CITY—The reelectionist vice mayor of Datu Piang town in Maguindanao del Sur survived a brazen daylight gun attack on Monday that the police believed could be politically-motivated.
The shooting and wounding of Mohammad Omar Samama, the son of Datu Piang Mayor Victor Samama, likely had something to do with politics as there was no other plausible reason for it to happen three months before the country’s local and national elections, the town police said.
Samama was speaking during a medical mission at an evacuation site in the town’s Barangay Magaslong at around 10 a.m. on Monday when he was shot by a still unidentified gunman.
He was hit in the abdomen and was rushed to a hospital in nearby Cotabato City, where he was still recuperating.
“Possibly, it is an election-related crime because we have no other motive [to think of] aside from that,” Police Maj. Andre Angeles, Datu Piang municipal police station chief, told the Inquirer in an interview.
Angeles said Samama had received death threats before the attack but declined to give more details about those threats. He said at least 30 combined security personnel from the police and Army were deployed during the medical mission to secure more than 300 constituents of Magaslong village.
Mayor Samama and other town council members were also at the event. The father and son, who initiated the medical mission, were both running for reelection under the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), the political party of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, in the upcoming May elections.
Lt. Col. Roden Orbon, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division spokesperson, affirmed the Samamas and other officials were holding the medical mission at an evacuation center in Barangay Magaslong when the shot was fired from a still unverified position, hitting the vice mayor in the abdomen.
“Vice Mayor Samama was reportedly conscious while being transported to the hospital. They reached Cotabato Regional and Medical Center at 11 a.m. and [he was] immediately admitted to the [emergency room] for operation,” Orbon said, quoting a military report.
85 cases
Samama was the latest victim of gun attacks in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte since January.
Police Brig. Romeo Macapaz, the Bangsamoro police regional director, said the police had monitored a total of 85 cases of shooting incidents in the Maguindanao provinces from Jan. 1 to mid-February, but he said not one of those incidents were election-related.
Former Maguindanao Rep. Esmael Toto Mangudadatu condemned the attack against Samama, a party mate in the UBJP and the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas.
“I appeal to our authorities to do everything so that the perpetrators and the mastermind would be put behind bars and to prevent a repeat of a similar incident in the future,” Mangudadatu said.
The father and son first ran together in 2022 and won as mayor and vice mayor of Datu Piang, one of the oldest towns in the then undivided Maguindanao province.
