COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Two motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead on Thursday a 26-year-old public school teacher in M'lang town in North Cotabato, the third shooting incident in the province since the election gun ban was implemented on January 13.
Senior Inspector Rolando Dillera, Mlang’s municipal police chief, identified the fatality as Shernan Mark Duerme, of the M'lang National High School.
The gunmen, armed with .45 pistols, took over the victim and shot him while he was riding his motorcycle ij Barangay Bagontapay.
Dillera said investigators are certain the gunmen are “hired killers†contracted to kill Duerme.
Duerme’s murder was preceded by Tuesday’s killing in Pikit, North Cotabato of Allan Dumato, a ranking employee of a local private job placement firm.
Domato was also riding his motorcycle near the town center of Pikit when two men flagged him down and shot him.
Chief Inspector Jordine Maribojo of the Pikit municipal police said Dumato was declared dead on arrival by an attending physician at a hospital in Kabacan town in North Cotabato.
Dumato was killed the same day a band of heavily armed Moro guerillas killed two security escorts of a barangay chairman in Banisilan, a hinterland town also in North Cotabato.
The victims were accompanying Sonny Kadil, chairman of Barangay Pantar in Banisilan, to Midsayap, North Cotabato on board separate motorcycles, when gunmen, armed with assault rifles, emerged from one side of the highway and fired at them.
Kadil, who was riding his own motorcycle, survived the ambush unscathed, but his companions, Takanda Mamukao and Muslimin Ampuan, were not as lucky. They both died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds.