ILIGAN CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 12, 2007) – Philippine policemen were searching Monday for an elections officer kidnapped in the southern province of Lanao del Sur.
Police said the 49-year old Cosain Laguindab and his wife, Nadja, were kidnapped by gunmen Friday while driving home along Narciso Ramos Highway in Calanogas town.
Gunmen flagged down Laguindab’s vehicle and seized them. The couple came from a court hearing on an election case against a defeated politician Piksan Benito. Police said the motive of the kidnapping could be political.
Last week, gunmen killed two poll officials in separate attacks.
Alioden Dalaig, the chief of the Commission on Elections’ Legal Department, was shot late Saturday by a lone gunman near his office in downtown Manila, and Joseph del Rosario, also a COMELEC officer in Cavite province, had also been murdered.
Dalaig, who had been serving for thirty years and was about to retire, handled all legal cases in the COMELEC, including those concerning electoral protests. Dalaig also signed the arrest order against a former COMELEC officer Lintang Bedol, who was linked to alleged poll cheating in May that favored President Gloria Arroyo.
Bedol, who is now in hiding, is facing contempt charges after he failed several times to attend a COMELEC hearing.
The motives in the two killings were unknown, but police said it recovered P300,000 from Dalaig’s pocket. (Merlyn Manos)
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