Gun-for-hire gang eyed in NCIP exec’s slay

Koronadal City – A gun-for-hire syndicate is being eyed in last Sunday’s killing of a tribal chieftain and coordinator of the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) in South Cotabato who was gunned down in front of his sari-sari store in Polomolok town.

Superintendent Raul Supiter, Polomolok police chief, told The STAR that they are not discounting the possible involvement of a gun-for-hire group, citing the manner by which tribal leader Datu Tammy Dawang, 50, was slain.

Supiter said Dawang, said to be a former radio broadcaster, died while being treated at the Howard Hubbard Memorial Hospital in Barangay Cannery Site here.

Dawang sustained multiple gunshot wounds in the head, left arm and abdomen, reports said.

He was shot at around 8:10 a.m. last Sunday in front of his sari-sari store in Tuazon Subdivision in the town proper.

Prior to the incident, Supiter said an unidentified man went to Dawang’s sari-sari store, attended to by his wife then, bought a pack of cigarette and then asked if Dawang was around.

When Dawang came out to see who was looking for him, the man pulled out a gun and shot Dawang several times.

The gunman fled on board a motorcycle parked a few meters away from the crime scene and driven by another man.

Police found several caliber .45 shells and slugs at the crime scene.

Dawang’s fellow tribal chieftains in Polomolok claimed that he had been receiving death threats after helping his fellow natives get back their ancestral lands.

Supiter said they were pursuing all possible angles in the killing.