Huwebes, Mayo 2, 2013

Fire guts LP's Maguindanao headquarters



COTABATO City, Philippines - Fire razed the campaign headquarters of the Liberal Party in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao on Wednesday night.
The owner of the building, government health worker Rissie Jumalon Torres, had earlier relocated outside of Maguindanao after allegedly receiving threats from groups trying to convince her to shut down the LP campaign headquarters.
Sultan Kudarat’s municipal fire chief, Mojaherin Gampon, said the fire that struck the LP headquarters in Barangay Bulalo, a thickly populated area in Sultan Kudarat and, subsequently, also razed two other houses.
Gampon said they have yet to determine the cause of the fire.
Senior Inspector Robert Papa, chief of the Sultan Kudarat municipal police, told Catholic station dxMS on Thursday via telephone that Torres had indeed reported having received threats from people in connection with having leased her property to an LP candidate for mayor of the municipality.
“She only had it recorded. She did not execute any sworn statement, or filed charges against those that allegedly threatened her,” Papa told dxMS.
The property of Torres was rented by Musib Salipada, LP’s official bet for mayor of Sultan Kudarat pitted against Shameem Mastura of the United Nationalist Alliance.
The provincial chairman of UNA for Maguindanao, Hadji Tucao Mastura, said the fire could have been deliberately staged to derail his candidacy for the top elective post in the province.
Mastura, who is incumbent mayor of Sultan Kudarat, said he has ordered the local police to provide security to the occupants of the LP campaign headquarters owing to the possibility they could be blamed if something happens to its occupants.
“It’s fabricated. There seems to be pre-emption (of the incident),” Mastura said in a separate phone interview with dxMS here.