Newsbriefs

NORTH COTABATO

Grenade attack kills 4

Four people were killed and eight others were wounded in a grenade attack in a town in this province, police said on Thursday.

Senior Supt. Cornelio Salinas, provincial police chief, said the assailants lobbed the grenade at the house of a certain Dina Madrigal in Midsayap past 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

Salinas said Hilario Villaflor, 60, died on the spot. Three more victims died before reaching the hospital. They were identified as John Loyd Anza, 8; Isidro Awa, 40, and Eric John Querol, 12.

Police found grenade parts in the blast site. The attack, police said, came as the victims were watching TV.

Hours later, assailants on a motorcycle threw a grenade at a high school in Tacurong City, wounding two people. Police said they didn’t believe the two cases were related. Williamor A. Magbanua, Inquirer Mindanao, with AP

LUCENA CITY

Fake NPAs nabbed

AUTHORITIES arrested two men posing as communist guerrillas and collecting so-called revolutionary taxes last Sunday, police said on Tuesday.

PO1 Randy Requinto, of the Guinayangan town police, identified the suspects as Amado Patriarca and Catalino Masaga, both residents of Barangay Sabang I, Guinayangan.

A military report said soldiers arrested the two in the act of demanding money from Mario Ronquillo, village chair, and Marcelo Ortega, village watchman.

Police found that Patriarca and Masaga were not New People’s Army members but con men. Patriarca was an escaped convict from the Davao penal colony. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon

CALAMBA CITY

Cop accuses fellow cop

A policeman pointed to a fellow policeman as behind a failed attempt on his life here on Wednesday.

SPO1 Renato Opeña said PO2 Frederick Natiola, a colleague at the city police office, was the one who shot and wounded him past 8 p.m. in a village here.

Opena suffered three gunshot wounds in the body and tagged Natiola as his attacker as he lay in his hospital bed, according to Supt. Josel Pernito, city police chief. Natiola gave himself up, saying he wanted to clear his name.

Pernito refused to discuss what could have prompted the attack. Maricar Cinco, Inquirer Southern Luzon