Police launch manhunt for suspect in Zamboanga del Sur massacre

PAGADIAN CITY, Philippines—Police have launched a manhunt for a male suspect in the massacre of four people—including a pregnant woman and a 5-year-old boy (not girl as erroneously reported earlier)—in a village of Kumalarang, Zamboanga del Sur.

Police have cleared a man they earlier invited for questioning over the killings of Elizabeth Saquilabon, 58, the matriarch of the Saquilabon family; her daughters Kareen Anduhon, 21, who was pregnant, and Sheremae Saquilabon, 16; and five-year old Ryan Christian Ferolino, son of Anduhon from a previous marriage.

Supt. Jose Bayani Gucela, Zamboanga del Sur police chief, said the male suspect being hunted now is a suitor of one of the victims, Sheremae, who resented a lesbian relationship that Sheremae entered into.

Insp. Aurelio Dolores Jara, operations officer of the police’s Scene of the Crime Operatives (Soco), said the wounds suffered by the victims indicated that they were attacked by people who harbored deep anger against them.

The victims bore multiple hack and stab wounds and were attacked near midnight as they slept. Reporting by Hernan dela Cruz, Inquirer Mindanao in Pagadian City