KJPARGETER-FREEPIKCOTABATO CITY — Gunmen killed in an ambush in Midsayap, Cotabato at about dusk Saturday a candidate for the municipal council in the nearby Northern Kabuntalan, Maguindanao del Norte.
Officials of the Midsayap Municipal Police Station and local executives separately told reporters on Sunday that the 46-year-old Jerry Beltran Dopredo died on the spot from bullet wounds in the head.
Mr. Dopredo is aspiring for a seat in the municipal council of Northern Kabuntalan, one of the 12 towns in Maguindanao del Norte, a component province of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
He was riding his motorcycle, when he was attacked by two men, armed with pistols, in Barangay Central Katingawan in Midsayap, killing him instantly. Midsayap is in the first district of Cotabato province under Administrative Region 12.
Barangay Katingawan, where Mr. Dopredo was ambushed, is near the border of the adjoining Midsayap and Northern Kabuntalan towns
The assailants of Mr. Dopredo immediately escaped using a getaway motorcycle, according to witnesses.
His relatives in Northern Kabuntalan had told reporters that they were convinced that the murder of Mr. Dopredo was politically motivated.
The director of the Bangsamoro regional police, Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, said he has instructed the director of the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office to dispatch intelligence agents to Midsayap to help municipal police investigators put a closure to the atrocity that left Mr. Dopredo dead. — John Felix M. Unson
