DIGOS CITY –– A 40-year-old Protestant pastor of the Manobo tribe, who went berserk and killed his daughter and two neighbors, was shot dead by a policeman in Jose Abad Santos town in Davao Occidental at 3:20 a.m. on Friday, June 7.
Police Colonel Narciso Bayugo, Davao Occidental police provincial director, said in a telephone interview, that Pastor Roger Laquina, a resident of Barangay Marabatuan of Jose Abad Santos, went amok around 3:30 p.m., on Thursday, June 6, and hacked his 16-year old daughter Analyn and her companion Rey John Munsag, 5.
As he was running along the road brandishing his bolo, he hacked another neighbor, Olipio Oso, 55, who was passing by.
The three victims died instantly after suffering hack wounds in different parts of their bodies, Bayugo said.
Bayugo said an initial investigation showed that before the incident, the pastor got enraged and forbade his daughter from getting married because of a misunderstanding with the her betrothed over “dore” (dowry).
The Manobo dowry system requires the groom to provide the bride’s family money or material things before marriage.
Bayugo said policemen arrested the suspect after the incident.
But at dawn on Friday, while inside the town police station’s detention cell, Laguina complained of severe stomach pain and asked to be brought to the Lachica Hospital at the town proper.
“For humanitarian consideration, because he claimed to be suffering from stomach pain due to his previous surgery, he was brought by our policemen to the said hospital,” he said.
Bayugo said the pastor and his escorts were on the way to the hospital passing through Barangay Caburan Small at 3:20 a.m. when Laguina asked the policemen to stop the vehicle as he wanted to urinate.
It was then that the pastor allegedly grabbed the 9-mm caliber firearm of Patrolman Jeffrey Angeles and shot him in the back.
Luckily, the policeman was not hurt as he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Another police escort, Staff Sergeant Edwin Mellejor, shot Laguina, hitting him in the head.
“He was rushed to the Lachica Hospital but the attending physician declared him dead upon arrival,” Bayugo said.
The remains of the pastor, as well as those of his victims, were being subjected to autopsy as part of the investigation of the incident, said Bayugo. (Editor: Leti Boniol)