2 frontliners killed, 4 hurt in quarantine checkpoint attacks

SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines — A militiaman and a police master sergeant were killed while other four frontliners were hurt in separate attacks on quarantine checkpoints in central Mindanao Thursday.

A soldier, Sgt. Jasper Cagaitan of the 6th Infantry Division, was also wounded when gunmen ambushed on the same day a unit of the Husky Bus in Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao.

The first frontliner to perish in one of the two checkpoint attacks was a policeman, Sgt. Arnold Paclibar, who died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

Paclibar was shot repeatedly by two men on a motorcycle that he tried to stop for inspection at a COVID-19 quarantine checkpoint in Esperanza town in Sultan Kudarat.

The suspects also shot and wounded a policewoman, Sgt. Chato Maycong, a barangay health worker named Josephine Danggan and Arnel Saldo, a volunteer community watchman.

Maycong, Danggan and Saldo are now confined in a hospital.

Lt. Col. Lino Capellan, spokesman of the Police Regional Office-12, said Friday personnel of the Esperanza municipal police are now trying to identify the culprits with the help of barangay leaders,

A member of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit, Aladdin Alon, was killed while a companion, Joey Moambing, was injured in a grenade blast that ripped through an anti-COVID-19 checkpoint in Barangay Labo-Labo in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao late Thursday.

Barangay Labo-Labo is not too distant from the town proper of Esperanza.

“The victims are frontliners helping the local government unit there enforce quarantine regulations via checkpoint duties,” Major Gen. Diosdado Carreon of 6th ID said Friday, referring to Alon and Moambing.

The bombing was perpetrated by two men riding a motorcycle together, according to officials of the 601st Brigade and the Maguindanao provincial police office in nearby Datu Hoffer town.

Another group also shot with assault rifles a CAFGU outpost and houses near the quarantine checkpoint immediately after the grenade blast, sending innocent villagers running for their lives.  

Dozens of vehicles were stranded at both ends of the highway traversing Barangay Labo-Labo when responding soldiers and police teams closed the arterial stretch for several hours while probers and bomb experts sifted through the blast scene.