Lastikman's hands in Pikit bombing?

COTABATO CITY - Relatives of a
multi-awarded police officer could be the target of the bombers who fired a 40 mm grenade projectile on a chapel in the town proper of Pikit town Wednesday
night, community leaders and an Army intelligence official said.Two of the three worshipers wounded in the
bombing of the chapel of the United Church Christ of the Philippines (UCCP),
Jeremias Dandan and his engineer-son Gerome, are close relatives of Senior
Inspector Elias Dandan, former municipal police chief of Pikit.A reliable source close to nurse Felomina Ferolin said she was very close to the community that she refused to be reassigned to other areas. She was well-loved by the community she had been serving for years, the source, also in the medical profession, said.

The injured Dandans and another wounded
worshiper, Virgie Manulid, are now confined at a hospital.The Army intelligence officer said, Dandan, a decorated police officer, was
responsible for the neutralization of notorious, elusive criminals in the
municipality while chief of the local police, could be the target of wanted man Datukan Samad's followers.

He was reassigned to another North Cotabato
town more than a year ago.

Dandan, through his confidential informants, helped recapture fugitive Datukan Samad, also known as Commander Lastikman,
was facing kidnapping, extortion and gun theft cases.

Samad was first arrested in Cotabato City
last year, clamped down at the Maguindanao provincial jail, but escaped along
with eight other inmates by cutting the steel window grills of their cell with
a hacksaw blade.

Earlier, Senior Inspector Sunny Leoncito, head investigator of the Cotabato
Police Provincial Office (CPPO), said the 40 mm grenade projectile fired from a distance could be directed against Ferolin, chief
nurse of the Municipal Health Unit of Pagalungan, Maguindanao. Leoncito, citing results of initial probe, said the attack against
Ferolin could have stemmed from the measles vaccination she conducted in
one of the villages in Pagalungan town sometime September this year. Allegedly, one of the children that received vaccination developed
complications, which angered the parents and relatives. Leoncito said that of the blast victims, Ferolin suffered severe
injuries, which led to her death, minutes after she was sent to a
hospital nearby. These angles, however, are just among the many issues being studied by
his team and other units tasked to investigate the case. It’s just
that the personal grudge as motive is nearest to truth,” he said. North
Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza has condemned the bombing of the UCCP
church, which left two dead and three others injured, among them the Dandans,
who belong to a pioneer clan in Pikit, an old settlement of Muslim and
Christian communities. Senior Inspector Mautin
Pangandigan, chief of the Pikit police, on Thursday said investigators are
still collecting information from people who were inside the worship site when
the explosive round was set off using a shoulder-fire launcher.