COTABATO CITY (October 20, 2024) — A villager was killed while four others, two of them soldiers, were wounded when a drunk barangay official armed with a pistol opened fire at chicken barbecue stall along a busy street in Barangay Bagontapay in Mlang, Cotabato at about midnight Saturday, October 19.
In an initial report released on Sunday afternoon, the Mlang Municipal Police Station identified the fatality as Romnick Reyes, who died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.
Two off-duty enlisted Army personnel, Gilbert Dasig and Rollen Jay Duron, and two civilians, Jomer Lumugda and Rosinda Macailing, were wounded in the shooting frenzy.
Local executives and investigators in the Mlang municipal police force had confirmed that a ranking barangay official was behind the atrocity, but asked reporters not to identify him meantime while statements of witnesses to the incident are still being compiled.
Brig. Gen. James Gulmatico, director of the Police Regional Office-12, said on Sunday that he had directed the officials of the Mlang municipal police and the Cotabato Provincial Police Office to arrest the culprit and prosecute him to the fullest extent of law. (OCTOBER 20, 2024, COTABATO CITY, JOHN UNSON)
