Government physician hurt in Maguindanao del Sur ambush

COTABATO CITY — A 28-year-old government physician was seriously injured in an ambush in Buluan town, the capital of Maguindanao del Sur, on Saturday night.

In a report to the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region early Sunday, Lt. Cemafranco Cemacio, chief of the Buluan police, said that the attack left Sharmaine Ceballos Barroquillo badly wounded. 

Barroquillo, who works in the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Hospital in nearby Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat, was driving her car when she was attacked by gunmen at a stretch of the Tacurong-Buluan Highway, not too distant from the Buluan District Hospital.

Despite her condition, the wounded Barroquillo managed to drive her dark grey Toyota Swift away from the scene, hit a tricycle and swerved towards the side of the highway and there got stalled. She was immediately rescued and brought by emergency responders and personnel of the Buluan Municipal Police Station to a hospital for treatment.

Investigators in the Buluan MPS are still trying to identify her attackers who had immediately escaped, now subject of a police and military manhunt.

Gunmen killed an Indian moneylender, Laxman Singh, in a daytime highway heist in Buluan, on the same route, last November 12.

Two Christian preachers involved in missionary works in non-Moro communities in Sultan Kudarat province were also seriously wounded by attackers in Buluan about two weeks before gunmen killed Singh and took with them his cash collections as they fled.

The duo, both residing in Mlang town in Cotabato province, were in a vehicle when they were repeatedly shot and wounded by their attackers positioned along the highway near the town proper of Buluan.