Pentagon recruits shoot bus passenger dead

COTABATO CITY — Suspected new recruits of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) gang shot dead a bus passenger in a bungled highway robbery, their supposed "test mission," in Pagalungan, Maguindanao yesterday.

Major Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, identified the slain commuter as 40-year-old Efren Fernandez of North Cotabato’s Pigkawayan town, who was killed on the spot when one of the gunmen shot him on the chest with a .45 caliber automatic after resisting to hand them over his wallet and other belongings.

Ando, citing feedback by their operating units in Pagalungan, said the suspects, disguised as ordinary passengers, boarded an air-conditioned unit of the Wenna Bus Co., which serves the Cotabato-Davao route, in Pikit, North Cotabato and declared a hold-up at a secluded stretch of the highway in Barangay Galakit in Pagalungan.

One of the suspects ordered the driver to pull over just as his companions started robbing the bus passengers of their valuables.

Fernandez, seated not far from the driver’s back, resisted, prompting one of the holduppers to open fire, killing him on the spot.

The shooting triggered a commotion inside the bus and attracted villagers nearby, forcing the suspects to flee to different directions.