1 dead, 3 hurt in separate gun attacks in Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - A village watchman was killed while an elderly couple and a truck driver were wounded in separate gun attacks here and in North Cotabato’s Kabacan town in four days.

The slain barangay tanod, Gene Jordan, was riding his motorcycle and was to pull over in front of a pharmacy along a busy street at the municipal proper of Kabacan on Tuesday when one of two men riding a motorcycle together came close and shot him repeatedly with a .45 caliber pistol.

The wounded Jordan tried to run away, but eventually fell and succumbed to gunshot wounds in different parts of his body.

The Kabacan municipal police is still trying to determine the identities of Jordan’s killers and their motive for the attack.

The murder of Jordan was preceded by an attempt by still unidentified gunmen to kill spouses Udtog and Perla Mama, both in their late 60s, while inside their house in Tamontaka area here.

Mama is a retired employee of the Land Transportation Office.

Witnesses said gunmen speaking to each other in Maguindanaon dialect intruded into the couple’s yard and shot them both with handguns through an open window.

Mama and his wife were both wounded in the shooting frenzy.

The suspects hurriedly left after sensing that the shots they fired triggered panic in the neighborhood.

The incident was followed by a near fatal attempt on the life of truck driver Rafael Trojales in another gun attack at Doña Teresa Street in a residential district here.

Trojales was alighting from his truck he has just parked along the street when one of two men riding a motorcycle in tandem approached him and shot him twice with a .45 caliber pistol.

Trojales, who was hit in the abdomen and jaw, was rushed to a local hospital, where he is now undergoing medication.