Couple killed, 2 more hurt in daring attack in Kidapawan

COTABATO City, Philippines - Two motorcycle-riding men armed with assault rifles killed a couple operating a hardware store and seriously wounded two of their workers in a daring attack Wednesday night in Kidapawan City.

Superintendent Chino Mamburam, Kidapawan City’s police director, said entrepreneur Gina Bayhon, and her common-law husband, Kenneth Gelloriza, died from gunshot wounds in different parts of their bodies.

Bayhon owns a roadside hardware store, the Doname, Inc., along a busy thoroughfare in Kidapawan City.

The victims were emerging from their establishment, along with workers Faith Peñaflorida and Ivy Peñalosa, when the suspects pulled over before them and opened fire with M-16 assault rifles.

Mamburam said Bayhon and Gelloriza were both pronounced dead on arrival by attending physicians of a hospital where responding policemen and barangay officials rushed them for medication.

Mamburam said investigators are looking at an old-grudge or business rivalry as the motive for the couple's murder.

Peñaflorida and Peñalosa, who sustained gunshot wounds in different parts of their bodies, are now confined at a hospital in Kidapawan City.

The killing happened despite the police's heavy presence around the city with the implementation of the election gun ban, which will remain in effect until June 12.