3 of 5 suspects in BARMM town attack identified

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local executives and ranking police and Army intelligence officials have identified three of the gunmen who killed with M16 assault rifles four villagers and wounded four others in an attack on Tuesday, June 2, in Barangay Malingao in Kadayangan town in Cotabato province.

The three of them, the cousins Musib Tingan and Suwaib Samlah and their cohort, Norodin Taaw, are known large-scale dealers of shabu, operating in eight newly-created towns, one of which is Kadayangan, that are grouped together in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area under the regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, but is inside Cotabato province in Administrative Region 12.

The incident on Tuesday in Barangay Malingao left Musalik Talusan Balang, Haron Samad Boliongan, Romeo Endim Lombo and a 17-year-old high school student, Abdul Haruddin Samad, dead. Four others who sustained bullet wounds in different parts of their bodies are now confined to hospitals in Midsayap, Cotabato.

Barangay leaders and officials of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office-12 and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region told reporters on Wednesday that the culprits and the three slain villagers are involved in the trafficking of shabu and marijuana in Kadayangan and nearby towns.

Capt. Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters late Tuesday that local executives have reported to them that the incident, which has to do with squabbles of dealers of shabu and marijuana control of certain areas in Kadayangan, was preceded by a "transaction," that went awry, between the suspects and the victims of their daring attack.

The commander of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade, Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog, and his subordinate-officers in the 33rd Infantry Battalion covering Kadayangan had also confirmed to reporters that the perpetrators of the atrocity and the victims are all tagged in the circulation of narcotics in the  Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area. 

Local executives and members of the multi-sector Cotabato Provincial Peace and Order Council said Tingan, Samlah and Taaw were also tagged in the detonation of an MK2 grenade on New Year’s Eve, six months ago, in Barangay Dalapitan in Matalam town in  Cotabato, where there are residents whom they suspect of having helped entrap three of their cohorts in drug peddling activities several weeks before. The bombing injured 22 Barangay Dalapitan residents, among them grade school children.

Moro datus, local executives and investigators from the Kadayangan Municipal Police Station said they have information, relayed to them by residents in the municipality, that the gunmen behind the deadly gun attack in Barangay Malingao targeted Balang, Boliongan and Lombo, with whom they had an altercation prior to Tuesday's carnage that triggered panic among residents in houses around.

Salanguit and Bunayog separately said local leaders in Kadayangan and in towns around are helping PRO-BAR units and the 33rd IB search for the group that perpetrated Tuesday’s killings in Barangay Malingao.