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Thursday, March 24, 2005
Private security force assaulted; guard killed
By Dante M. Fabian
MABALACAT -- A security guard died while two others were wounded when heavily armed men fired grenades at a private security force sparking a gunbattle in a barangay here Tuesday night.
Killed was Richard Mortel, 28, a security guard employed by the Homeland Security and Investigation Inc. in Barangay Paralayunan.
The identities of the two persons injured were not made available as of Wednesday night. They sustained wounds and were rushed to the Dee Hwa Liong Medical Center in Barangay Bical.
Sources said the two victims suffered shrapnel wounds on different parts of their bodies from the grenades fired by the attackers using an M-203 grenade launcher.
A report said about four men carrying high-powered firearms arrived at the security guards' barracks located inside a vacant private lot in Paralayunan at 10 p.m.
Witnesses who requested anonymity said the men proceeded with the attack on the guardhouse where at least eight security guards, all belonging to Homeland Security Investigation Inc., were staying.
Mortel died on the spot after being hit by an explosive fired from an M-203 grenade launcher. He sustained fatal wounds on the head and body.
Mortel's body was brought to the Funeraria Pangilinan in Barangay San Francisco here for autopsy.
Some of the guards said the armed men who attacked them positioned themselves in two points at the Ninoy Aquino By-Way, some 44 meters away south of the guardhouse, and an abandoned house, some 25 meters east of the guards' station.
One of the security guards disclosed they exchanged gunfire with the perpetrators who fled towards the direction of Barangay Tinabang in Magalang town.
The guards were hired to watch over the parcels of land adjacent to the five-hectare land, which is a subject of a pending case before the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (Darab) as evident in a signboard placed inside the contested property.
Barangay officials and residents revealed the incident probably has something to do with an ongoing ownership dispute over the adjoining farmlands.
Responding policemen recovered from the scene several empty shells of M16 armalite rifle, shotgun and a slug of a rifle grenade.
(March 24, 2005 issue)
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