COTABATO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 13, 2011) – Unidentified gunmen ambushed a motorcycle taxi on Sunday in the southern Philippines and killing one of its passengers, officials said.
Officials said the ambushers escaped after the attack which killed Allan Labrador, 34, in the village of Matampay in Banisilan town in North Cotabato province.
Labrador was driving the motorcycle with his family when gunmen sprayed them with automatic gunfire. His wife Luz Villa, 35; and two children Princess Grace, 6, and Anabelle, 13 were injured in the attack.
The motive of the attack was unknown, but troops were sent to the area to help local authorities pursue the gunmen who escaped after the ambush.
“We still don’t know the motive of the ambush, but initial reports said two gunmen were involved in the attack and we have dispatched two squads of soldiers to help the police in tracking down the assailants,” Army Colonel Noel dela Cruz, a spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division, told the Mindanao Exsminer.
It was not immediately known whether the attack was connected to family feud or clan war. The ambush occurred just a day after masked gunmen also massacred 5 people inside their house in Sultan Kudarat’s Senator Benigno Aquino town in what authorities said was connected to a bitter land dispute in the village of Midtungok.
Authorities identified those killed as Jolie Fegurac, 45; his wife Josephine Fegurac, 45; Jonathan Fegurac, 21; Jerson Fegurac, 23; and Benei Pelitro, 26.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the two separate violence, but family feud and clan war or locally known as “rido” is not uncommon in Mindanao where members of warring groups often clash with deadly results, and the fighting would sometimes last for many years or decades. (Mindanao Examiner)