COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 15, 2008) – Police have mounted wide manhunt for three men who killed two policemen in the troubled Muslim autonomous region in southern Philippines.
“Police forces are tracking down the men responsible in the killings,” Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao, the regional police chief, told the Mindanao Examiner.
The two policemen – Edgar Espra and Prang Andig - were killed late Friday inside a commuter van in Shariff Kabunsuan’s Sultan Kudarat town by three passengers. One passenger was also hit by a stray bullet, Goltiao said.
The motive of the attack is still unknown, but Goltiao said it could be linked to a family feud.
“Feud could the motive in the killings because one of the victims, PO1 Prang Andig, a son-in-law of Parang town Mayor Talib Abo, was said to have many enemies before he became a policeman. Andig was believed to be the real target here,” Goltiao said without elaborating.
There was no immediate statement from the family of Andig.
Clan war, gun attacks and extra-judicial killings are not uncommon in the Muslim autonomous region. Dozens of people had been killed in clan war and gun attacks in recent years in the Muslim region considered as the poorest in the country.
The region was also targeted in the past by terrorist bombings blamed by authorities to the local Abu Sayyaf group and Indonesian militant Jemaah Islamiya. (Mindanao Examiner)
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