MIDSAYAP, COTABATO –– A soldier died while his companion was critically injured when two gunmen riding in tandem on a motorbike shot them in a remote village here Wednesday afternoon.
Corporal Earl Tabaranza, 31, and Private First Class Meljay Bernal, 30, both members of the Army’s 34th Infantry Battalion, were on board a Yamaha Sniper motorbike heading to the town proper when two gunmen riding in tandem on a separate motorbike opened fire at them around 11 a.m., said Colonel Glenn Caballero, 34th IB commander.
Caballero said the soldiers were shot along the national highway of Barangay Central Glad, about five kilometers from the town center.
Both soldiers, wearing civilian clothes, suffered bullet wounds and fell by the roadside, as the suspects on board a Kawasaki Bajaj motorbike fled.
Police Lt. Colonel John Miridel Calinga, Midsayap town police chief, said Bernal died in a hospital two hours after the ambush.
Calinga said scene-of-crime operatives found four empty shells for cal. 45 pistol at the crime scene.
A manhunt had been launched.