North Cotabato grenade attack fails, ex-mayor dies in highway mishap

COTABATO CITY -- Police are hunting down two men on a motorbike who lobbed a hand grenade in front of a residential home in Barangay Poblacion, Pikit, North Cotabato on New Year's Day. Chief Inspector Donald Cabigas, Pikit town police chief, said the suspects particularly lobbed the hand grenade at past 3 p.m. in front of the house owned by Felomina Ferenal located beside the Poblacion Barangay Hall. Luckily, Cabigas said, the grenade failed to explode and was safety deactivated by police and Army bomb experts. But he admitted that the grenade attack sent chilling effects to residents nearby. The Ferenal family could not say why their home was subjected to grenade attack. Police investigation continues. Meanwhile, in nearby Arakan town, also in North Cotabato, a former town vice mayor was killed in a vehicular accident Sunday afternoon. Wennie Canario, 57,former vice mayor of Arakan, was driving his motorbike in Barangay Doroluman when he collided with another motorist, identified as Emilio Aringo, student of Coabato Foundation College for Science and Technology. Canario sustained head serious injuries since he was not using crash helmet while Aringo sustained minor injuries. The former town official was declared dead on arrival in the hospital. Traffic police are still determining who was at fault.