Merchant killed in Maguindanao del Sur ambush

COTABATO CITY— A businessman was shot dead in a busy stretch of the Cotabato-Davao Highway in Barangay Galakit in Pagalungan, Maguindanao del Sur on Tuesday morning.

Officials of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police and the Army’s 90th Infantry Battalion separately confirmed to reporters the incident that resulted in the immediate death of the large-scale fruit dealer Dong Kusay Balabadan, an ethnic Maguindanaon.

The 40-year-old Balabadan and his wife, Noraina, 38, were together in their car, from Barangay Bulit in Montawal, also in Maguindanao del Sur, when gunmen attacked them in Barangay Galakit while on their way to a supplier of watermelons somewhere in Pagalungan.

Balabadan’s car veered toward the side of the highway when he lost control of the wheel due to bullet wounds he sustained from the attack. His wife survived the ambush unscathed.

Investigators in the Pagalungan Municipal Police Station and intelligence agents from the 90th IB are cooperating in identifying their attackers, who had escaped immediately using getaway motorcycles.