Senior Inspector Joyce Birrey, Makilala police chief, said the bodies were those of Kalid Kamama and Bulantoy Adam, both of Barangay (village) Dungguan in Datu Montawal town; and Hayden Buisan and Faisal Tungganay, both of Kabacan town.
Birrey said all four bodies, which were discovered in Barangay Sinkatulan, all had a gunshot wound to the head, their hands tied behind them and their mouths covered with packing tape.
She said that at about 2 a.m., more than an hour before the bodies were found, gunshots were heard by residents but no one saw who had fired the shots.
Empty shells of .45 cal. bullets were later found near the victims.
Police Officer 2 Archie Uypala, Makilala police investigator, said a passerby alerted them at around 3:20 a.m. that four bodies were lying by the roadside.
“None of the residents of Singkatulan knew any of them, but the men were estimated to be aged between 20-30 years old,” he said.
Mamaluba Enggona, a village official in Datu Montawal, came forward saying he knew Kamama and Adam personally and he was shocked by their deaths.
“The victims were farmers but (they) also drive passenger motorcycles [plying] the Datu Montawal-Kabacan route,” Enggona said.
A relative of Buisan and Tungganay said the two had not committed any wrongdoing but he could not say what jobs they actually held.
In recent months, several strangers turned up dead in various areas of North Cotabato and based on police findings, they had been summarily executed by still unidentified assailants.
As in other cases of summary executions elsewhere, most of the fatalities had been, according the authorities, involved in unlawful activities, particularly drug trafficking. Reports from Carlo Agamon, Edwin Fernandez, Karlos Manlupig and Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao