Another employee of Mindanao-based power utility killed

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines — Gunmen killed in an ambush on Friday in nearby Carmen town an electric consumption meter reader of a provincial power utility, barely two weeks after a lineman in Tawi-Tawi was shot dead while about to disconnect lines to a house whose owner has accumulated unpaid bills.

The Cotabato Provincial Police Office, in a report on Saturday to Region 12 police director Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg, said Ruben Reyes, an employee of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative, died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

Members of the police force in Carmen, one of 17 towns in Cotabato province, are still trying to determine who were responsible for the fatal ambush of Reyes, attacked while riding a motorcycle at a stretch of a highway in Barangay Ugalingan, on his way to a residential site for his daily task of reading and recording power consumption in houses assigned to him by Cotelco, his employer.

Last December 1, motorcycle-riding men killed with pistols the lineman Ali Gustami while about to disconnect power lines supplying electricity to a house in Bongao town in Tawi-Tawi, whose occupants are heavily indebted to the power utility that he worked for, the Tawi-Tawi Electric Cooperative.

Gustami’s co-worker, Nassir Ambutong, was seriously wounded in the gun attack that has remained unsolved.

Friday’s atrocity in Carmen that resulted in the death of Reyes was preceded by a gun attack last week in Koronadal City that resulted in the death of Engineer Rey Miguel in the South Cotabato branch office of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, or NGCP.

The NGCP is a franchised power transmission service provider that controls the distribution of electricity to the regions from the state-owned power grid, supplied by power-generation facilities.

Miguel was driving his car, his wife, Janabelle, and their son on board, when they were attacked by men armed with pistols at Barangay Carpenter Hill in Koronadal City, killing him on the spot. Their attackers, who hurt his spouse and son, escaped using getaway motorcycles.