3 people were killed and 15 others wounded in a shooting outside a polling station in Cotabato City shortly before the start of the first parliamentary election in the semi-autonomous Bangsamoro region in the southern Philippines on Monday. Cotabato police chief Jhipin Bongkaya said the incident occurred shortly before midnight, when members of rival political factions disputed who had priority in the voting line.
Electoral clash followed by shooting in Cotabato
He said the pushing turned into a fistfight before ending in gunfire in a crowded area. Bongkaya said those involved belonged to rival parties that emerged from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which waged a decades-long struggle for autonomy in the Philippines. The front later split into two rival parties in the current election.
Commission on Elections Chairman Erwin Garcia announced that Cotabato City would be placed under the commission’s control, with an administrator to be appointed after the shooting. Garcia had described the security situation on Sunday as calm, warning that those attempting to incite violence or buy votes would be pursued.
80 seats and millions of voters in the region
The election marks the culmination of a peace process that began in the late 1990s and led to the establishment of the autonomous Bangsamoro region on the predominantly Muslim island of Mindanao.
Authorities deployed more than 20,000 security personnel to protect polling stations, set up checkpoints and formed rapid-response teams to deal with potential violence in an area that has previously seen political violence and conflicts among powerful families. Several security incidents preceded the election, including an ambush and shooting targeting military commander Abdulraouf Macacua’s convoy last month.
President Ferdinand Marcos had chosen Macacua as the region’s interim prime minister, amid opposition from the leadership of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Thousands of fighters remained loyal to the front’s chairman, Murad Ebrahim, and his party, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party.
In a separate incident, a man died in hospital in the early hours of Monday after an explosion near another polling station. Police are investigating the cause. Authorities also prevented a convoy of about 200 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters from entering Cotabato last week because it violated the terms of the regional peace agreement, according to election official Ray Sumalipao.
