• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Six unidentified armed men yesterday waylaid and opened fire at the occupants of a vehicle along the highway at Sitio Lapak, in Brgy. Robles, La Castellana, Negros Occidental.
Two of the five occupants of a red Toyota Innova vehicle were reported injured by the La Castellana police.
The injured victims were identified as 34-year-old Shem Job Galimba, the driver of the Toyota Innova, and his mother, Chona, a 60-year-old retired teacher.
The three other passengers of the vehicle, namely Katrina Aliermo, 31, Maria Montecina and a minor, were reportedly unharmed.
Initial police investigations showed that the vehicle was traversing the highway of Sitio Lapak in the barangay, when an unidentified person, carrying a banana trunk, blocked their way.
When they stopped, four of the suspects approached the vehicle and shot the victims, and then took undetermined amount of cash from them, police investigations further showed.
The amount taken by armed men from the victims has not yet been determined as of press time.
La Castellana Mayor Rhumyla Nicor Mangilimutan, in an interview with DYHB, disclosed that Galimba and his mother are now being treated in a hospital in Bacolod City.
Galimba was reported to be an employee of the La Castellana municipal government, assigned at the Municipal Disaster Risk and Reduction Management Office.*
