GENERAL SANTOS: A mayor and political ally of boxing superstar-turned-legislator Manny Pacquiao has died after being ambushed by unknown gunmen in a violence-wracked town in the southern Philippines, police said yesterday.
George Perrett suffered a fatal cardiac arrest early yesterday as he received treatment in hospital for a gunshot wound to the thigh, said Superintendent Jomar Yap, the deputy chief of police of Sarangani province.
Perrett, the mayor of the coastal town of Maitum on the southern tip of the Philippine islands, was shot by unknown gunmen as he drove home with his wife and an aide late Friday, Yap added.
His companions were unhurt.
Police said no suspects had been arrested and the authorities did not know if the attack was politically motivated.
3 Muslim rebels killed in clash
MANILA: Three members of the breakaway Muslim group of Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) were killed and three government troops were injured in a clash erupted when the group attacked a military installation in Maguindanao Friday night, military said yesterday.
Colonel Dickson Hermoso, the spokesman for the Philippine Army’ s 6th Infantry Division, said a group of BIFF men fired mortar rounds at the base of the Army’s 2nd Mechanized Battalion in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town, Maguindanao Province, around 11.45pm Friday.
Hermoso said the ensuing sporadic fighting lasted up to about 1am yesterday when the undetermined number of attackers withdrew.
Three BIFF members were killed in the clash, while three government troops got hurt, he said.
However, BIFF spokesman Abu Misry Mama claimed that the government soldiers sustained fatalities, and the rebel group suffered no casualties.
Agencies
