Two cops, 2 others killed in another bus incident

08/27/2010

It seems that riding the bus these days has become dangerous.

Gunmen stormed a bus in a province in the volatile southern region of Mindanao yesterday and shot dead four persons, including two policemen, the Army said.

Wearing military and police fatigues, the assailants erected a road block on a highway in Lanao del Sur province and told the people on board to get off, Regional Army chief Major Gen. Romeo Lustestica said.

“The driver, the conductor and two policemen aboard the bus were then shot to death, and they (the gunmen) then burned the bus,” Lustestica said.

He said the slain policemen, identified as SPO2 Jovito Cabigas and SPO1 Roselito Obatay, who were acting as marshals on the Rural air-conditioned bus, were disarmed before being shot at close range.

Lustestica also identified the other fatalities as driver Jaime Duhaylunsod and conductor Arkie Bastasas.

He said none of the other passengers were hurt or robbed of their belongings, although he could not say how many people were on board the bus, which was headed from Cagayan de Oro City to Zamboanga.

Passengers told investigators they overheard the attackers speaking in the local Muslim dialect, he said, although their identities were not yet known.

“The suspects said, ‘the revenge is not yet over’,” Lustestica quoted the passengers as saying.

Lustestica said he had dispatched troops from the Army’s 35th Infantry Battalion to track down the gunmen.

The local police have also started investigation and were making use of some leads to identify the group which staged the attack.

Initial findings showed the possible motive behind the attack could be extortion, noting the perpetrators did not harm nor rob the passengers.

The area is a known hotbed of Muslim separatist rebels, although other armed groups involved in highway robberies are known to operate in the area as well.

Bus companies plying the same route in the past have complained of armed extortionists, who frequently stage attacks on vehicles if they failed to pay up.

Police marshals have just been deployed in buses following a holdup incident that occurred along the same highway last August 1.

Police and military personnel are often helpless in the lawless southern region, where a proliferation of unlicensed firearms has complicated a decades-old Muslim separatist insurgency.

The attack occurred three days after eight Hong Kong tourists were killed after the bus they were traveling on in Manila, about 800 kilometers to the north, was hijacked.

There was no suggestion the two events were related.

Monday’s crisis involved a disgruntled ex-policeman who hijacked the bus in a bid to get his job back.

Few foreigners travel to Lanao del Sur because of security issues. Gina P. Elorde, Mario J. Mallari and AFP

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