2 minors tagged as suspects in teacher's murder in Mlang

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – The mayor of Mlang town in North Cotabato on Monday implicated two students as behind last week’s murder of a municipal public school teacher.

Mlang Mayor Joselito Piñol said the teacher was murdered after threatening to fail the suspects in his class for carrying guns inside classrooms.

Piñol, chairman of the municipal peace and order council, declined to identify the suspects owing to their being minors, but emphasized there is strong evidence linking them to the killing of 25-year-old Mark Shenan Duerme, of Lepaga National High School.

Duerme was riding a motorcycle in Barangay Bagontapay in Mlang when one of the two “adolescents” riding another motorcycle trailing behind the victim shot him repeatedly with a caliber .45 pistol as they got close, killing him on the spot.

The suspects drove away after seeing Duerme fell from his bike.

Piñol said Duerme had reprimanded two students, who have long been subject of complaints by classmates they have been bullying, for carrying guns inside their campus at Barangay Lepaga, a farming district in Mlang.

“We can’t reveal their identities because they are both minors,” Piñol said.

Barangay officials said one of the suspects is son of a notorious Moro bandit wanted for heinous offenses and is holding out in a secluded area at the Liguasan Marsh, not far from Barangay Lepaga.

“We could have prevented the murder of Mr. Duerme had teachers in that school reported to the police the perennial problem of carrying of guns by some students,” Piñol said.