SULU (Mindanao Examiner / May 13, 2013) – Monday’s elections were generally peaceful in Sulu, except for 2 of the19 towns in the southern province where clashes erupted between followers of warring politicians from the same clan, police said.
Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, the Sulu police chief, said fighting was reported in Panglima Estino where the Estino clan fielded two candidates running for mayor. And also in the town of Tongkil, where followers of the incumbent mayor Wahid Sahidula clashed with rival politicians.
“There are fighting among warring politicians, but we are on top of the situation. We have deployed more policemen in those areas to prevent the escalation of violence,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
There were no immediate reports if casualties, but other sources said several people had been shot during the clashes.
Other than those areas, elections went on smoothly in other towns where security forces and civilian volunteers were spotted guarding the polling precincts.
“Elections in Sulu now are much peaceful compare to other provinces in Mindanao. Here in Sulu, the fighting (between warring politicians) are not really as bad as what we see on television news such as one the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao or in Zamboanga (Peninsula),” said Jumaira Abubakar, who runs a small store near the polling precincts in the town of Maimbung.
Members of the poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting were also seen observing the elections inside the polling precincts in Sulu, and so are the Citizens for Change. Marines and policemen also secured schools where voting was held.
But violence were reported in Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga del Norte provinces, and Zamboanga Sibugay in Western Mindanao. In Buug town, an unidentified man hurled explosives at the house of Sanlugan village chieftain Ruben Pefania.
Brigadier General Daniel Lucero, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said they also recovered a cache of weapons at a school in the village of Buburay in Zamboanga del Norte’s Dimataling town. He said soldiers sent to guard the elections were inspecting the school when they tumbled on the cache of assorted automatic weapons.
He said elections proceeded in the village after troops recovered all the weapons.
Police said two persons – Nonoy Aliansa and Dexter Calunsag – were also killed in an attack in the village of Kahayagan in Bayog town. It was not immediately known whether the killings were connected to politics. The duo was shot by masked gunmen. (Mindanao Examiner)
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