Gunmen kill pastor delivering sermon in church

SURIGAO CITY—A Protestant preacher was shot and killed by two men while he was delivering his sermon in his church in San Francisco, Surigao del Norte province, on Sunday, police said.

Pastor Allan Ursabia, 45, was attacked in front of his flock of at most 100 people around 9.30 a.m. at the Lord Jesus Christ Fellowship Church in the coastal village of Jubgan, 9 kilometers from this city, PO3 Era Campillos said. The victim was brought to the hospital here but was declared dead on arrival.

A female lookout was seen outside the church when the killers shot Ursabia with .45-cal. pistols, police said. They fled on a red motorcycle, Campillos said.

Personal grudge

Investigators said they were looking at personal grudge among several possible motives for the crime. Ursabia’s wife, Josephine, had told police that the killing might be connected with the legal assistance her husband was providing to a jailed relative.

The assailants appeared to be “hired killers,” police said. “We’re ruling out the possibili- ty that it was perpetrated by communist rebels,” Campillos said, noting the minimal New People’s Army presence in San Francisco.

In Negros Oriental province, police on Wednesday filed a murder complaint against a man believed to have stabbed and killed a priest in Barangay Sta. Cruz Nuevo, Tanjay City, before he could officiate a 10 a.m. Mass during a fiesta on Sept. 29.

The victim, Fr. Antonio Bacalso, 44, parish priest of Barangay Sta. Cruz Viejo in Tanjay, went to the neighboring Sta. Cruz Nuevo to join the village fiesta celebration and to bless its newly renovated chapel, police said. He had just disembarked from his motorcycle near the chapel in Sitio Bomba when he was stabbed in the back with a 15-inch knife.

Mentally ill

Bacalso died before reaching Holy Child Hospital in Dumaguete City, said PO3 Roquito Mirata, Tanjay police desk officer.

Investigators have yet to determine the motive for the killing amid reports that the suspect, Dionisio Tejamo, was mentally ill.

Tejamo was found by police in his home in Sitio Bomba. He was brandishing his knife and throwing stones at the arresting officers, forcing one policeman to shoot him in both legs, Mirata said.

The suspect was brought to Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital in Dumaguete City. He is facing a murder complaint at the Tanjay prosecutor’s office.