Bin Laden Look-alike Runs for Office in the Philippines.

There are so many people running for office in the election in the Philippines that it’s hard to remember who’s who.

That’s why Agakhan Sharief decided to chose a nickname people won’t soon forget: Osama bin Laden!

After attending a peace-and-order meeting led by Arroyo in Lanao in 2002, Sharief asked the president to pose for a souvenir picture with him. Somebody in the crowd jokingly told Arroyo that he was known around town by the infamous nickname.

"Oh, I see, the young bin Laden of Mindanao," Sharief quoted Arroyo as saying. The crowd erupted in laughter and applause.

"When I walked out of that meeting, I had a different name _ bin Laden," Sharief told The Associated Press by telephone.

But unlike the terrorist, Sharief is a peacemaker (maybe he’s the Bizarro bin Laden):

Unlike the world’s most-wanted terror suspect, Sharief is known by many in Lanao del Sur province as a peacemaker who has helped broker truces when sporadic clashes have erupted between government troops and Muslim insurgents.

Link – via Random Citations