Suspects behind ambush of couple in Sultan Kudarat arrested

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local executives and the police together filed criminal charges against the two now detained perpetrators of the ambush of a couple in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat last Thursday, January 9.

Sherwin Bation Salgan, 21, and his 28-year-old accomplice, Mohalidin Bito Nanding, were arrested by policemen in a pursuit operation in Barangay Sangay in Kalamansig before dawn Friday, some 10 hours after they killed in an ambush Nestor Rondon and his wife Marilou.

Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of the Police Regional Office-12, told reporters on Saturday, January 11, that witnesses, among them barangay officials, have identified Salgan and Bito as the gunmen who ambushed the couple in Barangay Santa Clara in Kalamansig, enabling policemen, led by municipal police chief Major Rodney Binoya, to locate and clamp them down.

Rondon and his wife, a barangay health worker, were riding a motorcycle together, on their way to a far-flung farming enclave to check a sick villager, when Salgan and Nanding, positioned along the route, opened fire as they got close, killing them both instantly.

Salgan and Nanding were both cornered by Binoya and personnel of the Kalamansig Municipal Police Station in a small house in a secluded area in Barangay Sangay, about five kilometers from where they killed the Rondons.

Ardiente said Binoya and his subordinates have seized from Salgan and Nanding a Norinco .45 caliber pistol, a 9 millimeter Daewoo pistol and a fragmentation grenade.

Ardiente said Salgan and Nanding, who, in the presence of local officials, confessed to having killed the Rondons, shall also be separately prosecuted for illegal possession of firearms and a grenade.