Tacurong City police director Chief Inspector Raul Supiter said Escobia and Ilustre, along with their officemates, were on their way to Davao City on board three vehicles when the gunmen, positioned at one side of the Tacurong-Davao Highway in Barangay Digal, Buluan, flagged them down and, at gunpoint, divested them of their belongings, including wristwatches and wallets.
"After robbing them, the gunmen dragged Escobia and Lustre to different spots and, subsequently, shot them one after another," Supiter said.
Supiter, quoting witnesses, said a suspect wearing a ski mask forced a .45 caliber pistol into Lustre’s mouth and opened fire. The bullet exited at the back of Lustre’s head, he said.
Supiter said they have initially determined that the 20 or so armed men could have stayed for two hours along the stretch of the highway where they stopped the convoy of vehicles carrying the employees of the Tacurong City government on their way to Davao City for a field trip.
Tacurong City, a component part of Sultan Kudarat province, is only about 15 minutes drive from the spot where the incident occurred.
"Surprisingly, it was only their vehicles that the gunmen stopped. Others that passed by earlier were not flagged down," Supiter said.
Maguindanao Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan, chairman of the provincial peace and order council, said the police office in the province is now helping local investigators in Buluan determine the exact identities of the suspects, mostly clad in combat uniforms and armed with B-40 anti-tank rockets, which, he said is "signature weapon" of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Brig. Gen. Agustin Dema-Ala, commander of the 301st Brigade, said pursuing soldiers found a shoulder-fired rocket launcher, three live B-40 rockets, a caliber .30 Garand rifle, a caliber .45 pistol, military uniforms with "Bangsa Moro Army" insignias and two way-radios in a suspected hideout of the armed men in nearby Barangay Cadiis in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao.
Dema-ala said elements of the 66th Infantry Battalion, now hot on the trail of the suspects, also found in the abandoned safehouse assorted medicines and first aid kits.
Sources from the Army’s intelligence community said among those the soldiers recovered on the escape route of the gunmen were addresses of wealthy traders in Central Mindanao and schematic sketches of the surroundings of their houses. – John Unson