Police probe into ambush on ARMM governor's staff

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Police have yet to identify suspects in the fatal ambush on Saturday in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao of a member of the staff of Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The fatality, Betsy Yap of the ARMM's Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team, died from a gunshot wound in the head.

HEART, which is attached to the Office of the Regional Governor, is a rapid deployment contingent providing assistance and rehabilitation services to calamity and conflict-stricken areas in the autonomous region.

Yap and her mother, Beatrize, a member of the Sangguniang Bayan in South Upi, were en route to Cotabato City from Barangay Tenorio in Datu Odin Sinsuat town when men armed with pistols opened fire from one side of the road.

South Upi is a hinterland municipality in the second district of Maguindanao. Its mayor, Reynalbert Insular, survived an ambush and a roadside bombing last year.

Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-ARMM said personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police and probers from the Maguindanao provincial police office are still investigating the incident.

Hataman, chairman of ARMM's inter-agency regional peace and order council, has asked Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff, to dispatch military intelligence agents to help the police identify the culprits.

"The PRO-ARMM is doing its best to identify them and file corresponding charges against them. There is a big possibility they were hired by a mastermind," Hataman said.

There is speculation that the attack was meant for Councilor Yap.

"I leave everything to the police. I don’t have any idea of anybody wanting to have me killed," she said Sunday morning.

She said their ambushers must have presumed it was her seated on the front seat of their heavily tinted car, where they aimed most of their shots.

"We changed seats before we were fired at. I sat in the backseat and she took the front seat beside the driver," Yap’s mother said in between sobs.

Hataman and Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu have condemned the incident in separate statements.

The crime scene is less than a kilometer away from Camp Siongco, the command center of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, central Mindanao's largest military installation.

Mangudadatu said he is ready to offer a cash incentive to any informant who can help the police identify Yap's killers.

Mangudadatu said he wants the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-ARMM to help solve the case.