COTABATO CITY — A police patrolman and two individuals tagged in the fatal shooting of a woman were killed in a shootout in Barangay Baluan in General Santos City on Wednesday night, September 11.
Brig. Gen. James Gulmatico, director of the Police Regional Office-12, told reporters on Thursday that the slain Patrolman Benjamin Donton Difunturom III and his companions were to peacefully arrest two men who had earlier killed a villager, Didith Reyes Alejandria, but they resisted and opened fire, provoking a gunfight.
Difuntorum’s companions managed to return fire, killing the two suspects, Jessie Semini and his cohort, a certain Tagre, on the spot.
Difuntorum, who sustained multiple bullet wounds, was declared dead on arrival by doctors at a hospital where his companions rushed him for treatment.
Intelligence agents under the General Santos City Police Office and officials of units of the Army's 6th Infantry Division in the city and in nearby towns in Sarangani province told reporters that besides his involvement in a spate of killings, Semini was a large-scale shabu trafficker.