Bullets for stone thrower hit woman, son

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – Police have filed homicide and frustrated homicide charges against a former member of the Ampatuan private militia for fatally shooting a child and wounding another on New Year’s Day in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat.

The suspect, Badrudin Kabad Zailon, 39, a driver of the mayor of Datu Abdullah Sangki town, was aiming his caliber .45 pistol at a man who hurled a stone at the mayor’s vehicle he was driving, but instead hit a balut vendor, Nelly Arenga, and her three-year-old son who died on the spot.

Inspector Jojie Nicolas, Isulan police chief, said they have asked the mayor of Datu Abdullah Sangki, who is related to the Ampatuan clan by blood, to help the Arenga family.

Zailon, according to his relatives, was once a member of a private militia of the Ampatuan and Sangki clans in the second district of Maguin­danao.

Zailon, however, is not among those charged in the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre of 57 people in Ampatuan, Ma­guindanao.