Fallen Hero! "Our small village mourns death of Policeman-Son"
Peace and Order • 09:30 AM Thu Nov 24, 2022
669
By:
Manny Piñol
Our ancestral village of Nueva Vida in Mlang, Cotabato, where every family's child is the community's own, is mourning the death of Police Officer Rudy Amihan who was killed while chasing a group of holdup men who earlier robbed a small eatery and killed a civilian yesterday afternoon.
SSgt. Amihan, who was Toto to all of us in the village, responded to an alarm raised following the holdup and killing incident and led the team that blocked the criminals' escape route towards nearby Tulunan town.
As he chased the group which fled after exchanging fire with another group of policemen, Toto was shot in the chest and succumbed to his injury in the town's hospital.
Four of the seven holdup men were killed while the three others escaped towards the Liguasan Marsh area.
Toto was like a brother to all of us and a brother-in-law of our younger brother, Nilo.
We, the older boys watched Toto and the other kids grow and helped them get jobs.
It was our older brother, Col. Pat, who helped him become a policeman and later a member of the Special Action Force.
Toto and the civilian who was shot and killed in the eatery during the holdup were the latest victims of the increasing incidents of robberies and shootings perpetrated by criminals crossing our provincial boundaries.
Pikit, Kabacan and Mlang are among the towns in North Cotabato where these armed criminals rob small business establishments, steal motorcycles by shooting and killing the riders and just kill civilians, especially in Pikit, for no reason at all.
This is sad and dangerous because not everybody will just hide and cower in fear.
The people of Mlang, where was Mayor once, will defend and fight back, as proven in the killing of four of the seven criminals.
I urge our leaders and those of the areas where these criminals come from and seek refuge after committing the crime to address this problem seriously because this could degenerate into another conflict which had caused us so much suffering in the past.