9 wounded in Kidapawan store robbery

COTABATO CITY — Unidentified gunmen, two of them armed with machine pistols, seriously wounded nine people and carted away an undetermined amount of cash in a daring robbery in Kidapawan City the other day.

Investigators said the hooded armed men barged into a grocery store in a commercial district in Kidapawan, seat of the provincial government of North Cotabato, and declared a holdup.

As security guard Edwin Matarabon and a civilian volunteer, Pasco Samonte, shot it out with the robbers, their cohorts divested the store’s cashier of cash. Matarabon and Samonte were wounded.

An off-duty policeman, PO3 Cesar Condes, who was near the scene, responded and helped repel the robbers, even wounding two of them.

Outmaneuvered, the robbers vented their ire on people inside the store, firing shots indiscriminately. Seven people were wounded in the shooting frenzy. — John Unson