No leads on North Cotabato church blast suspects

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines — The police are clueless on the identities of the motorcycle-riding men who fired at a chapel in Pikit town in the province Wednesday night with a 40-millimeter grenade projectile.

The incident left two Pikit residents dead and three others wounded.

READ: 2 killed, 3 hurt in North Cotabato church blast

Senior Inspector Mautin Pangandigan, chief of the Pikit police, said investigators are still collecting information from people who were inside the worship site of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) when the explosive round was set off using a shoulder-fire launcher.

Islamic religious groups and political leaders in Central Mindanao condemned the bombing of the chapel and branded the atrocity an affront to Pikit’s co-existing Muslim and Christian communities.

The grenade, launched from a distance, landed near a row of seats occupied by people performing a midweek prayer service.

Pangandingan said intelligence operatives of the Army’s 602nd Brigade and its component unit, the 7th Infantry Battalion in Pikit, are now helping identify the culprits and determine their motive for the attack.

Pangandingan said probers are still validating information they have initially gathered from witnesses, who confirmed seeing two men riding a motorcycle perpetrate the bombing.

The incident traumatized members of Pikit’s UCCP church, Pangandingan said.

"I thought a fluorescent lamp on the ceiling of the church exploded because there was smoke that obscured the surroundings, but after the smoke billowed, we saw five injured churchgoers sprawled on the floor," Gilda Dandan, who survived the blast unscathed, recounted.

Dandan’s spouse, Jeremias, and their son, engineer Jerome, and another victim named Virgie Manulid, sustained shrapnel wounds.

The explosion left two dead, Felomina Ferolin, who was declared dead on arrival at a hospital, and Gina Cabiluna who died while undergoing medication.

Ferolin, 54, was a chief nurse of the Pagalungan municipal health office in Maguindanao, while Cabiluna, 39, was a teacher in a public school in the town proper of Pikit.