Another barangay exec in Zamboanga del Sur dies in gun attack

COTABATO CITY — Another barangay councilor in Zamboanga del Sur was killed in an ambush on Saturday afternoon, January 4, the second in the province in just two days.

Brig. Gen. Bowenn Joey Masauding, director of the Police Regional Office-9, told reporters on Sunday, January 5, that Joemar Requilme, a member of the barangay council in Lantawan in San Miguel town in Zamboanga del Sur, died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

A report from the San Miguel Police Station stated that Requilme was riding his motorcycle on his way to somewhere when he was attacked by men armed with pistols at a secluded stretch of a highway in Barangay Poblacion in San Miguel.

Officials of the municipal police and local executives told reporters the gunmen who ambushed Requilme immediately escaped using a getaway motorcycle.

The incident preceded the fatal ambush of Michael Virallo in Upper Dumalinao in Dumalinao, Zamboanga del Sur on Friday night, January 3.

Virallo, a member of the Upper Dumalinao barangay council, sustained 12 gunshot wounds in the head and in his upper torso that caused his immediate death, according to a report from the Dumalinao Municipal Police Station.

Officials of the Zamboanga del Sur Provincial Police Office told reporters last Saturday that Virallo was walking alone in an interior area in Sitio Mangga in Barangay Upper Dumalinao when his assailants, armed with pistols and positioned along the route, opened fire and ran away.

Masauding said he directed the police investigators in San Miguel and in Dumalinao to enlist the help of municipal officials in identifying the killers of Requilme and Virallo for prosecution.