Couple hurt in North Cotabato grenade attack

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines — A couple was injured in a grenade blast that ripped through an isolated farmyard in Mlang, North Cotabato on Monday night.

Farmer Nestor Lambid, 58 and his 54-year-old spouse, Juvy, sustained shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies.

They were immediately rushed to a hospital by responding barangay officials and personnel of the Mlang municipal police.

Chief Inspector Aldrin Gonzalez, information officer of the Police Regional Office-12, said Tuesday two men hurled grenades into their house in Barangay Nueva Vida in Mlang through open windows while they were dining together at past 6:00 p.m. Monday.

One of the bombers was identified as Ronnie Rabor, now subject of a joint police-military manhunt.

There are talks spreading around Mlang purporting that Rabor’s family is locked in a long-time land dispute with the blast victims.

Mlang, an agricultural town in North Cotabato, is home to mixed Muslim and Christian residents, a large number of them relying only on farming as means of livelihood.

Gonzalez said investigators from the North Cotabato provincial police based in Kidapawan City are now helping the chief of the Mlang municipal police prepare corresponding criminal cases against Rabor and his accomplice.