GUN ATTACK. Medical personnel of the Cotabato Regional Medical Center try to revive Jocelyn Palao, an officer of the Ministry of the Indigenous Peoples Affairs in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, after she was shot in Barangay Rosario Heights XI, Cotabato City on Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 20, 2022). Two of Palao's companions were unharmed during the incident. (Photo courtesy of DXMS Radyo Bida)
COTABATO CITY – An official of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was killed while two others were unscathed in a gun attack in this city, a police official said Wednesday.
Maj. Amil Andungan Jr., Cotabato City Police Office Station 2 chief, identified the fatality as Jocelyn Samar Palao, 52, chief of the ancestral domain division of the BARMM Ministry of the Indigenous Peoples Affairs.
Palao belongs to the Teduray tribe and is a resident of South Upi, Maguindanao del Sur.
Andungan said Palao was in the backseat of a minivan on the way home along with two companions when shot by one of two men riding a motorbike in Barangay Rosary Heights XI here at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday
Palao’s companions, Jimmy Benito and Nurudin Zacaria, were unharmed.
“We are still investigating as to the motive and identities of the attackers. We are still trying to find out,” Andungan said in the vernacular in a radio interview Wednesday.
Member of Parliament Froilyn Tenorio Mendoza of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority condemned the “vicious attack on an IP woman.”
“Many women’s lives were lost and these attacks on women are unacceptable under any circumstances,” Mendoza said in a statement Wednesday.
She called for greater efforts to protect all women in BARMM “against these senseless acts.”
Both Mendoza and Palao are known IP women’s rights advocates. (PNA)
