Yet another killing in Roxas town, Cotabato

KIDAPAWAN CITY – Unidentified gunmen shot dead a barangay kagawad in President Roxas, minutes after a local amateur singing contest near midnight Monday, a police officer said.

Chief Insp. Romy Castanares, chief of the President Roxas municipal police station, identified the victim as Wendell Gaseta, kagawad of Barangay Ilustre and chair of the Barangay Committee on Peace and Order.

According to Castanares, Gaseta was on his way home after a barangaysponsored singing competition when gunmen shot him twice in the head and other parts of his body.

The victim died while he was being taken to a hospital in President Roxas town, reports said.

Witnesses could only tell police investigators that there were two assailants responsible for the murder of Gaseta.

It was the second killing in Barangay Ilustre in a week after a project engineer, identified as Nilo Sintos, was ambushed while driving his motorcycle on his way home to Arakan town.

Sintos, according to reports, had just finished checking one of his road projects along the Arakan Valley Development Complex when attacked by believed to be the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) rebels.

The area is a common ambush site, owing to its terrain, police said.

Castanares said Gaseta had given them vital information as to Sintos’ killing but refused to elaborate. But this was the initial motive they were exploring as the reason behind the kagawad’s slay.

The killings of Sintos and Gaseta came three weeks after the killing of Joel Gulmatico, a known progressive peasant leader in nearby Arakan town.

Gulmatico, according to reports, was believed executed by members of the Philippine Army operating in the area.

Castanares has yet to determine if Gulmatico’s case was, in a way, connected to the latest killings in President Roxas.