1 dead in Cotabato City gun attack; bounty up for perpetrators

Cotabato province map. INQUIRER FILES

COTABATO CITY — One person has died in the series of attacks here on Tuesday morning.

Major John Vincent Bravo, commander of police station 2, said the driver of Cotabato City General Services Office chief Pedro Tato Jr., Dandy Anonat, 30, had died while undergoing treatment at the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center.

Anonat and Tato were wounded during the ambush along Sebastian Street in Barangay Rosary Heights 10 at around 8:30 a.m.

Anonat had driven Tato from his home to the Cotabato City Hall when they were waylaid.

Police said two men on board separate motorbikes opened fire on Tato’s Mitsubishi pick-up vehicle as it slowed down near roadside stores along the street.

In another development merely an hour before the ambush, a grenade was lobbed at the house of the family of former Commission on Elections chair Sheriff Abas in Barangay Rosary Heights 3.

No one was reported hurt in the blast but the Abas family, according to village administrator Sukarno Utto, has raised P300,000 reward to those who can pinpoint the identity of the person who was caught on CCTV cameras tossing the grenade at the Abas residence.

Cotabato City Mayor Bruce Matabalao earlier pledged P300,000 as reward money for information about the grenade thrower and those behind the ambush of Tato and Anonat.

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JPV