Stop the political violence

IT is alarming that in less than three days – Saturday afternoon to Monday night – three murders of local officials were carried out in Mindanao. The first occurred Saturday, when Marawi City police chief Al Abner Wahab Santos was killed when his vehicle was ambushed. Two more victims – Loreto, Agusan del Sur mayor Dario Otaza and his son Daryl – were discovered Tuesday morning bound and shot multiple times, after having been kidnapped from their home Monday night by a group of men posing as agents of the National Bureau of Investigation.

Malacañang has issued the expected statements condemning these attacks while law enforcement officials seek the perpetrators. And while nothing about the motives for the killings can be known with any certainty until the killers are caught, speculations have already begun to circulate. In the case of Chief Santos, the presumption is that his death was connected to a criminal matter he was investigating. Mayor Otaza, who was a Manobo and a former NPA fighter, is a bit more complicated; his death may have been related to his Lumad connections, his past as a rebel, or his current office.