BUTUAN CITY—Still unidentified armed men raided the office of a cooperative, burned it, stabbed a victim and shot two others dead before fleeing the area on Tuesday morning at an interior barangay of a coastal town in Surigao del Sur, police reports said.
Reports from the Surigao del Sur police command reaching the regional headquarters here said that at 5:30 a.m., an undetermined number of heavily armed men raided and set on fire the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development Cooperative located at Kilometer 16, Diatagon, Lianga in Surigao del Sur.
The incident was reported by barangay Kagawad Mecias Avila to the Lianga police.
Avila said that the suspects stabbed the school director identified as Emerito “Emok” Samarka and shot two civilians identified as Dionel “Onel” Campos and a certain Onellio Senso. The three victims were all dead before the armed suspects fled the area.
According to the initial police investigation, the damage in the incident was about P5 million as the cooperative’s building was totally burned together with some goods and sacks of rice.
Surigao del Sur police had already dispatched a special operations team that coordinated with another team from the Army to hunt the perpetrators.
The authorities, together with local government personnel and barangay residents, retrieved the bodies of the victims.
Meanwhile, troops of the Cagayan de Oro-based Fourth Infantry “Diamond” Division, along with the National Police, are now conducting pursuit operations against the lawless band that attacked the cooperative.
Capt. Joe Patrick Martinez, 4ID Public Affairs Office chief, said based on initial investigations, an estimated 20 bonnet-clad men, burned the cooperative’s two stores and killed the three civilians for still undetermined reasons.
The 402nd Infantry Brigade commander, Col. Isidro L. Purisima, ordered the 75th Infantry Battalion to track down the assailants.
“We have immediately sent troops to closely coordinate and assist the police in the investigation regarding the burning and killing incident. We shall not let these criminals roam around and threaten the peace-loving people of Surigao del Sur. We will make them face the crimes they’ve committed,” he added.