Off-duty soldiers killed in separate attacks in Central Mindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Authorities are still sifting through two crime scenes to identify the culprits in the seemingly related gun attacks in Central Mindanao in just five days that left two enlisted Army members dead.

The latest of the two incidents happened only last Wednesday in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao, which resulted to the instant death of a motorcycle-riding off-duty soldier, Private 1st Class Hernando Daval of the Alpha Company of the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion.

The off-duty Daval was on his way to Kabacan, North Cotabato from their company command post in a nearby town when gunmen flagged him down at a secluded stretch of a highway in Pagalungan, Maguindanao and killed him with .45 caliber handguns.

Responding investigators from the Pagalungan municipal police told reporters the gunmen only intended to kill Daval since they escaped without taking with them his motorcycle and personal belongings.

Maguindanao’s provincial police director, Senior Superintendent Nickson Muksan, said investigators will file corresponding criminal cases against the suspects behind the fatal ambush of Daval once identified.

The incident was preceded by last week’s similar attack in Midsayap town in the first district of North Cotabato that resulted to the immediate death of another off-duty soldier, Cpl. Angelo Magtubo of the 7th Field Artillery Battalion.

Magtubo was riding his motorcycle on his way to the town proper of Midsayap from their artillery detachment in the west of the municipality when gunmen emerged from one side of the road and opened fire.

Magtubo died on the spot from gunshot wounds sustained in the ambush.

Local officials are convinced members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) perpetrated both attacks, having claimed responsibility for the earlier killings of about a dozen off-duty soldiers in one attack after another in the second district of Maguindanao in months past.

The police urged the public to refrain from speculating and give probers enough time to wind up with their investigation on the two incidents.

Captain Jo-ann Petinglay, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID), said their division commander, Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, had issued a directive restraining off-duty soldiers from going out of their camps riding motorcycles.

Combatants of the 6th ID and its component units in Maguindanao and North Cotabato figured in extensive combat engagements with the BIFF in the two provinces during the government’s March 28 to May 5 calibrated police action against the bandit group.