COTABATO, Philippines (Xinhua) - A boy was killed and another person was wounded in a grenade attack in the southern Philippine province of Agusan Sur on Saturday, police said Sunday. An unidentified man hurled a grenade in a residential house in the village of Binongan, Veruela township on Saturday, killing Daryl Navarro Mahabuhay, 12, wounding Bernard Sanggo Magguinimba, 38, said Reynaldo S. Rafal, a regional police commander.
Police are investigating whether the attack had to do with the upcoming village elections later this month, Rafal said. The Commission on Election placed more than 2,000 hot spot villages in the country. The Philippines is preparing for its local village elections to be held on Oct. 25, where over 300,000 positions for village council -- the smallest administrative division -- heads are up for grabs. The country is composed of at least 42,000 villages. Elections in the country, whether for local or national positions, are often marred by political violence, fraud and disenfranchisement, with warlords and more than a million loose firearms often playing roles in election results.
