CHECKPOINT ARREST. A police investigator (left) documents the firearms recovered from a candidate for village chair and three others during a law enforcement operation in Barangay Bual, Midsayap, North Cotabato on Tuesday night (Aug. 29, 2023). The arrest came hours after another candidate for barangay chair was shot dead near the town hall after he filed his certificate of candidacy. (Photo from Midsayap MPS via Radyo Bandera)
MIDSAYAP, North Cotabato – Police and military authorities arrested here Tuesday night four armed men, one of them a candidate for village chair, for possession of unlicensed high-powered firearms.
The arrest of the group came hours after a village chair aspirant was murdered near the Commission on Elections office here at about noontime of the same day.
Lt. Col. Peter Pinalgan Jr., Midsayap police chief, said a police team was conducting a checkpoint operation in Barangay Bual when a white pick-up truck without license plates was flagged down for inspection at about 6:30 p.m.
“Our police officers were implementing gun ban via plain view principle when they noticed what appeared to be a pistol protruding in the waist of one passenger,” Pinalgan said in a radio interview Wednesday.
The four were asked to alight from the vehicle and further inspection resulted in the discovery of four .45-caliber pistols and two M16 rifles with ammunition from the suspects.
“They have no gun ban exemption from the Comelec. Their guns were unlicensed,” Pinalgan said. “They are still undergoing investigation while the firearms have been forwarded to the police crime lab for validation and cross-matching.”
Pinalgan said one of the arrested suspects was a candidate for village chair of Barangay Sambulawan, also in Midsayap.
He withheld the identities of the suspects pending further investigation.
Sambulawan village is part of the Special Geographic Area of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (SGA-BARMM). A total of 63 villages in six towns of North Cotabato now belong to SGA-BARMM after opting to join the autonomous region during a 2019 plebiscite.
Charges for violation of the election gun ban and Republic Act 10591 or the Comprehensive Law on Firearms and Ammunition are being prepared against the suspects.
About six hours before the armed group’s arrest, Haron Dimalanis, an aspirant for village chair of Malingao, also in Midsayap, was shot dead in front of the town hall after he filed his certificate of candidacy on Tuesday morning.
Pinalgan said the killing of Dimalanis and the arrest of four armed men were not connected. (PNA)
