Wife of provincial education official hurt in Sultan Kudarat gun attack

KORONADAL CITY— A nurse-spouse of an education official in Sultan Kudarat province was hurt in a gun attack along a busy stretch of a highway in Isulan town, Sultan Kudarat on Monday afternoon.

Col. Christopher Bermudez, Sultan Kudarat provincial police director, said on Tuesday that the victim, Norilyn Javiaso Balancio, was wounded in the arm and is now confined in a hospital.

Balancio’s husband, Eric, is an education program supervisor in the Sultan Kudarat Schools Division Office in Isulan, capital town of the province, and a senior official of the Central Isulan Teachers, Employees and Retirees Multi-Purpose Cooperative.

Balancio, a registered nurse, was seated inside their white sports utility vehicle that her husband parked along the highway in Barangay Kalawag 2 in Isulan while he was to meet someone at a school campus nearby.

Two men riding a motorcycle together came close to the parked vehicle, opened fire with pistols and sped away, an attack that left Balancio wounded and caused panic among people in the surroundings. 

Bermudez said that there is an indication that her husband was the target of the attack since the culprits targeted the driver’s side of the vehicle, its glass window hit with metal-jacketed pistol rounds six times.