Probers face blank wall on fatal Midsayap ambush incident

NORTH COTABATO --- Investigators are certain a long-time vendetta feud led to the fatal ambush on Monday of two Moro villagers in a remote barangay in Midsayap, North Cotabato.Chief Inspector Aldrin Gonzales, information officer of the Police Regional Office-12, said Tuesday the Midsayap municipal police enlisted the help of local officials in identifying the killers of Maguindanaon farmers Tungas Lawan and Mhid Panegas.Personnel of the municipal police are apprehensive that relatives of the duo could resort to retaliations if the culprits remain scot-free.Lawan and Panegas, both residents of Salibo town in Maguindanao, where on a tricycle on their way home from the town proper of Midsayap when gunmen positioned along the road shot them with assault rifles.Their companion, Said Usop, sustained gunshot wounds in different parts of his body. He is now confined in a hospital.Gonzales said the North Cotabato provincial police have dispatched intelligence agents to help identify their attackers.Gonzales said probers are certain the incident could be rooted either to an old grudge, or involvement in a rido, which means clan war in the Maguindanaon and Maranaw dialects, of one of the three ambush victims.