A couple, a Catholic school official and a student were killed in two ambush incidents in just one hour in the adjoining seaside Lebak and Kalamansig towns in Sultan Kudarat province on Thursday, January 9.
Senior officials of the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office-12 told reporters on Friday, January 10, that the first to perish in the two incidents are Nestor Rondon and his wife, Marilou, attacked by gunmen while riding a motorcycle together in Purok Tambis in Barangay Santa Clara in Kalamansig.
Rondon and his wife, a barangay health worker in Kalamansig, died from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the attack.
Their two assailants, initially identified only Oting-Oting and Mohalidin, were arrested before dawn Friday in a subsequent pursuit operation in Barangay Sangay by personnel of the Kalamansig Municipal Police Station, led by Major Rodney Binoya.
Witnesses have positively identified the duo, both residents of Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat, as responsible for the gun attack that left the Rondons dead.
The atrocity preceded the fatal ambush, at about dusk Thursday, of a private school official and his nephew in nearby Lebak town, only about 15 kilometers away.
Henry Racho, a dean and sports instructor in the Notre Dame of Salaman College in Barangay Salaman in Lebak, and his nephew, the college student Erick James Racho Moyet, were also riding a motorcycle together when men armed with pistols, positioned along a road in the center of the municipality, opened fire as they got close, killing them both instantly. (JFU, January 5, 2025)
