By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent
AUTHORITIES are currently investigating the killing of a tribal leader by suspected members of the New People’s Army at around 9 am on Saturday.
In a media advisory issued by the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, 1st Lt. Kent Cabbigat, a civil-military officer of the 8th Infantry Battalion, identified the slain lumad as 45-year-old Datu Sammy Diwangan, 45, a resident of Sitio Malayag, Barangay Canganga-an, Cabanglasan town in Bukidnon.
The victm was the indigenous people’s mandatory representative to his village council.
The killing of Diwangan happened amid the declaration of the unilateral ceasefire between the national government and the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the NPA.
Diwangan’s nine-year-old son was able to flee the crime scene as the suspected communist rebels attacked, the Army’s media advisory reads in part.
According to Cabbigat, Diwangan was tending to his farm when four armed men attacked.
The military said Diwangan’s son told investigators that he was about to bring a gallon of fuel to his father when he saw four men approaching and fired their guns, prompting him to run back to their house.
Diwangan succumbed to a gunshot to the head.
Authorities said Diwangan was publicly known to be against the recruitment of NPA fighters in his area and had been actively involved in the surrender of rebels to the military.
It can be recalled that Diwangan was behind the surrender of Ka Cardo of Guerrilla Front 6 which under Sentro de Grabidad commander Thunder, recently. (with reports from PNA)
