COTABATO CITY (PNA) – An official of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was killed while two others were unscathed in a gun attack in this city, a police official said Wednesday, Dec. 21.
Major Amil Andungan Jr., Cotabato City Police Office Station 2 chief, identified the fatality as Jocelyn Samar Palao, 52, chief of the ancestral domain division of the BARMM Ministry of the Indigenous Peoples Affairs.
Palao belonged to the Teduray tribe and a resident of South Upi, Maguindanao del Sur.
Andungan said Palao was in the backseat of a minivan on her way home with two companions when she was shot by one of two men riding a motorbike in Barangay Rosary Heights XI at about 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 20.
Palao’s companions, Jimmy Benito and Nurudin Zacaria, were unharmed.
“We are still investigating as to the motive and identities of the attackers. We are still trying to find out,” Andungan said in the vernacular in a radio interview on Wednesday.
Member of Parliament Froilyn Tenorio Mendoza of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority condemned the “vicious attack on an IP woman.”
“Many women’s lives were lost and these attacks on women are unacceptable under any circumstances,” Mendoza said in a statement on Wednesday.
She called for greater efforts to protect all women in BARMM “against these senseless acts.”
Mendoza and Palao are known IP women’s rights advocates.