Local sectors bewail ambush of 3 children in Pikit

COTABATO CITY - Various sectors are ranting on the death of a 13-year-old boy in the latest gun attack in the troubled Pikit town in Cotabato that left two other 12-year-old children wounded.

Classes in the troubled Pikit town in Cotabato are suspended Wednesday until Friday following the incident that shook the communities in the hostile Pikit town to the core.

Three members of the 80-seat parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao --- Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., Suharto Ambolodto and Datu Jambo Matalam --- on Thursday condemned the incident in separate statements and urged the police to identify the culprits for immediate prosecution.

No fewer than 40 people had been killed since 2021 in shooting incidents in Pikit, located in the first district of Cotabato province, all unsolved.

Two members of the business community in Pikit, one engaged grains business and the other an owner of a roadside eatery, said while there are apparent indications about the worsening security situation in Pikit, residents cannot complain for fear of reprisals.

“May Allah save all people in Pikit from these security threats,” one the sources said Thursday.

Sinolinding, an eye specialist operating a hospital in Kabacan town in Cotabato, near Pikit, said the police, the military and local officials in Pikit ought to expand their cooperation in addressing the wanton killings in the area.

Most of the deadly incidents in Pikit happened in barangays grouped as Special Geographic Area of BARMM.

Pikit Mayor Sumulong Sultan signed on Tuesday afternoon an executive order suspending until Friday the classes in all schools in barangays under his jurisdiction following the fatal ambush about four hours before of a 13-year-old student, Fahad Guimalon, in an attack in Barangay Gli-Gli.

Guimalon and his two companions who were wounded in the attack were on their way home from school when gunmen positioned along the road opened fire, killing him instantly.

A tricycle driver, Jose Neri Gonzales, was shot dead by two men together on a motorcycle last Monday near the town proper of Pikit, just four days after bakery owner Ansarie Luntayan was killed with a pistol by attackers in nearby Barangay Takepan in the same municipality.

Deadly gunfights between rival clans, some identified with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, also rocked different areas in Pikit in the past 24 months, causing the displacement of innocent villagers.

Brig. Gen. Jamili Macaraeg, director of the Police Regional Office-12 and his counterpart in BARMM, Brig. Gen. John Guyguyon, had separately condemned the ambush of the three children.

Even tricycle drivers in Pikit were angered by the incident, something for them a direct insult on their LGU, now subject of rabid criticisms over its seeming lack of resolve to address the security woes besetting the municipality.