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, December 31.
Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Thursday, January 2, that motorcycle-riding gunmen first opened fire at the Toyota Hilux pick-up truck driven by their apparent target, Police Cpl. Tohami Musa, a Tausug from Tawi-Tawi, prompting him to return fire.
The wounded Musa, a member of a unit from PRO-BAR in Tawi-Tawi, defended himself, his wife, and their child from the attackers, forcing them to flee after an exchange 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. He is now recuperating in a hospital.
Security camera footage from nearby business establishments captured Musa emerging from his bullet-riddled vehicle and engaging his attackers in a gunfight, forcing them to flee as he calmly approached, targeting them with his pistol as if shooting at stationary paper targets in a range.
Macapaz said personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, led by their chief, Lt. Col. Samuel Roy Subsuban had enlisted the help of local executives in the municipality in identifying the perpetrators of the ambush that left Musa and Naga wounded.
Musa, whose wife, a resident of Cotabato City, survived the ambush unscathed, said he has no idea who their ambushers are.
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