Vendetta suspected in ambush of bus company manager, spouse

COTABATO CITY — Investigators are considering the possible involvement of subordinates, whom the bus company manager had terminated for mishandling fare collections and other irregularities, in the fatal ambush in Kabacan, Cotabato.

Armando Yap Lu and his spouse, Marilyn, were in a gray Toyota Fortuner when gunmen attacked them on Monday afternoon, February 10, along a highway in Barangay Kayaga, Kabacan, Cotabato, killing them instantly.

The slain Armando was the manager of a major bus company operating routes connecting Cotabato province to cities and provinces in Regions 11 and 12, as well as to Cagayan de Oro City in Region 10.

 Officials from the Kabacan Municipal Police Station on Wednesday, December 12, told reporters that confidential informants had revealed that Armando had previously terminated bus conductors and ticket inspectors for pocketing earnings they were supposed to remit to the company cashier

“We need to give investigators enough time to finish their investigation on all angles of that incident,” Col. Gilbert Tuzon, Cotabato provincial police director, said. 

Armando and his wife were on their way home to Carmen, Cotabato from the town proper of Kabacan when they were ambushed by gunmen positioned along the route.

They were both declared dead on arrival by physicians at a hospital where emergency responders brought them for treatment.

Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza, chairperson of the multi-sector Provincial Peace and Order Council, reiterated her offer on Wednesday of a substantial incentive to any informant who can help the police identify the perpetrators of the crime. She, along with local executives in Kabacan, had separately condemned the attack.

"I shall personally give that incentive to a deserving informant," she said.