A shooting occurred near a polling station in the Bangsamoro region of the Philippines just hours before the election polls opened. Police revealed the conflict began over a dispute to secure queue positions, which escalated into gunfire.
A shooting broke out in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in the southern Philippines before the opening of the polls on Monday, 14 Sep 2026. The incident left 3 dead and 15 wounded amid tight security ahead of the first regional parliament election.
Jibin Bongkaya, police chief of Cotabato City, said the incident happened shortly before midnight outside a school serving as a polling station in the regional capital. Rival political group members argued over who had the right to line up first for voting.
Police stated the conflict began as a dispute over queue positions, leading to pushing and shoving that escalated into a fistfight. Gunshots then rang out in an area crowded with people.
The perpetrators were members of rival political parties rooted in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which fought for decades to achieve autonomous governance in the southern Philippines.
This election is a pivotal moment in a peace process ongoing since the late 1990s, culminating in the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, an area with a significant Muslim population within a predominantly Catholic country.
Bangsamoro has long suffered from political violence and clan rivalries, so political leaders view a peaceful election as a major achievement.
Authorities have stepped up security measures in recent days, deploying over 20,000 security personnel across polling sites and setting up rapid response teams to handle potential violence.
In August, the convoy of the interim Chief Minister of Bangsamoro, appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was ambushed and fired upon multiple times by assailants.
Moreover, in the early hours of Monday, an explosion near another polling station resulted in one man dying at the hospital. Police are investigating the cause of the blast.
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