COTABATO CITY — A policeman and a tricycle driver were wounded in a gun attack in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte on Tuesday.
Brig. Gen. Romeo J. Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR), told reporters on Thursday that motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire first at the Toyota Hilux pick-up truck driven by their apparent target, Police Cpl. Tohami L. Musa, a Tausug from Tawi-Tawi, forcing him to return fire.
The wounded Mr. Musa, who belongs to a unit of PRO-BAR in Tawi-Tawi, defended himself, his wife and their child from their attackers, forcing them to escape after their exchanges of gunfire at the intersection of the Isulan-Cotabato and Cotabato-Upi routes in Barangay Awang.
The ambush scene is not too distant from a substation of the Datu Odin municipal police and the Army’s Camp Siongco, where the headquarters of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division is located.
A tricycle driver, Ghob Naga, was wounded in the ensuing crossfire, now recuperating in a hospital.
Recordings of security cameras in business establishments around captured Mr. Musa alighting from his bullet-riddled vehicle and engaging their attackers in a gunfight.
Mr. Macapaz said personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, led by their chief, Lt. Col. Samuel Roy M. Subsuban had enlisted the help of local executives in the municipality in identifying the perpetrators of the ambush.
Mr. Musa, whose wife, a resident of Cotabato City, survived the ambush unscathed, said he had no idea who attacked them. — John Felix M. Unson
