COTABATO CITY —The police and military are searching for a barangay chairman who killed a villager and wounded four others in a shooting rampage while drunk in Barangay Bagontapay, Mlang, Cotabato, around midnight on Saturday, October 19.
Brig. Gen. James Gulmatico, director of the Police Regional Office-12, on Monday said that they have enlisted the support of municipal officials in their hunt for the culprit, Ivan Roy Macantan, chairman of Barangay Bagontapay and a candidate for municipal councilor in Mlang.
Investigators in the Mlang Municipal Police Station and members of the Bagontapay barangay council told reporters on Monday that Macantan, then under the influence of liquor, repeatedly fired his .45 caliber pistol on people buying chicken barbecue at a roadside vending stall, killing a resident named Romnick Reyes instantly.
Four others, Jomer Lumugda and Rosinda Macailing, and two off-duty Army enlisted personnel, Gilbert Dasig and Rollen Joy Duron, were wounded in the shooting frenzy.
Macantan is aspiring for a seat in the Mlang municipal council in next year’s local elections.
Residents of Barangay Bagontapay confirmed to reporters that he and his three aides who were at the scene immediately fled after the incident and have since remained at large.
Gov. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza, who, as governor is also chairperson of the multi-sector Cotabato Provincial Peace and Order Council, has condemned the incident and urged the PRO-12 and the Cotabato Provincial Police Office to file criminal cases against Macantan in absentia for the judiciary to issue a warrant for his arrest.
“That, for me, was an act of terror. The perpetrator must be arrested and prosecuted for his offense,” Mendoza said.