Palace appeals for calm after deadly Lanao ambush

Malacañang on Friday appealed to supporters of various candidates to keep calm and refrain from engaging in violent activities as campaign for next month's midterm elections heats up. “We appeal to the supporters of the different candidates to keep calm, to continue to just campaign for their respective candidates, and not to engage in any violent behavior that will tend to discredit their particular candidates,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said at a briefing. Valte gave the statement a day after a deadly ambush in Lanao del Norte resulted in the deaths of 12 people and the wounding of nine others, including the mayor of Nunungan town. The mayor's 30-year-old daughter was among those killed in the violence perpetrated by a still unidentified group. Malacañang condemned the incident. “We strongly condemn this act of violence on the mayor and his supporters,” Valte said without confirming if the ambush was politically motivated. “As to the identity and to the motivation, we will withhold any comment on those two aspects because the PNP (Philippine National Police) is already investigating the case, and we don’t want to make any prejudgments,” she said. Valte, however, consented to say that Lanao has since seen an increase in police visibility. “What I can tell you at this point is that our security forces have deployed additional people in that particular area to prevent any possible escalation of violation. So we want to make sure that there will be no further attacks on any candidates, not just in this particular area,” she  said. — Patricia Denise Chiu/KBK, GMA News