COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A soldier was killed while eight others, including an innocent 10-year-old boy and his father, were wounded in another ambush in Basilan on Thursday night, October 8, the second in the province within just 3 days.
The fatality, one of the seven soldiers wounded in the ambush, succumbed early Friday, October 9, to gunshot wounds at the hospital of the military’s Western Mindanao Command in Calarian in Zamboanga City.
Basilan, which has 11 towns and two cities, Lamitan and Isabela, is one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region informed reporters early Friday that the slain soldier and his six companions, who belong to the Army's 45th Infantry Battalion, were together in a vehicle, the last in a convoy, when they were attacked by gunmen positioned along a highway in Barangay Sabong in Lamitan City.
Police Captain Steffie Salanguit, PRO-BAR’s spokesperson, said investigators from the Lamitan City Police Station, officials of different units of the Basilan Provincial Police Office and local executives are cooperating in identifying the gunmen behind the atrocity for prosecution.
Reports by police officials in Basilan to PRO-BAR’s headquarters in Camp SK Pendatun in Parang Maguindanao del Norte stated that the gunmen involved in Thursday night’s ambush in Barangay Sabong also opened fire at the multicab, trailing behind the military vehicle ridden by the soldiers they targeted, hurting its driver, Daniel Hajim Onton and his son, Erpan.
Onton was wounded in his arm while his 10-year-old son, a Grade 4 pupil, was hit by a bullet in the knee.
PRO-BAR officials and local executives identified six of the seven soldiers wounded in the ambush as Sgt. Edgardo Gayao, Staff Sgt. Noel Backas, Private 1st Class Ismael Degamo, Private 1st Class Felipe Tañamor Jr., Staff Sgt. Dwight Eissen Villamil and another, only as Cpl. Lagmay.
The seven soldiers and the Ontons were immediately brought by emergency responders to the Lamitan District Hospital for treatment.
Three of the soldiers ambushed, one of them hit by a rifle bullet in the head and the two others both wounded in their upper torsos, were airlifted on Thursday night by an Air Force helicopter to the hospital in WestMinCom’s command center in Zamboanga City. One of them died a few hours later while being treated by WestMinCom's medical personnel.
Brig. Gen. Frederick Sales, commander of the 1101st Infantry Brigade covering the entire Basilan province, had confirmed the demise of one of the three soldiers brought to the hospital in WestMinCom and assured to help facilitate his burial.
Thursday night’s incident in Barangay Sabong was preceded by the ambush in Barangay Badja in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan on Monday morning of a group of soldiers and members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit in different vehicles that left 13 of them wounded.
The 12 soldiers and a militiaman hurt in the ambush were on their way then to the headquarters of the 1101st Infantry Brigade in Isabela City when they were attacked by gunmen, armed with military-type combat rifles and 40 millimeter grenade launchers, from one side of the highway in Barangay Badja in Tipo-Tipo, one of the 11 towns in Basilan.
Local executives in Basilan and traditional Yakan, Tausug and Sama community leaders had told reporters that the separate ambushes on Monday morning in Tipo-Tipo and, subsequently, after dusk Thursday in Lamitan City, were perpetrated by the same group, led by Saddam Siddick.
Siddick, a criminal gang leader wanted for high-profile criminal cases pending in different courts, is also a known large-scale shabu and marijuana trafficker.
Local executives said Siddick also forcibly collects “protection money” from Muslim and Christian traders and owners of passenger vehicles operating in areas where he and his followers roam around.