Motorcycle-riding gunmen kill Surigao del Norte village chief

Motorcycle-riding gunmen killed a village chief in a town in Surigao del Norte on Thursday, November 18.

Harry Amalla, the 48-year-old chief of Barangay Jubgan in San Francisco town, was attacked outside his house as his horrified wife watched some 15 meters away.

San Francisco town police chief Lieutenant Anglo Ambid said Amalla had just arrived from Malimono town and was attacked by the gunmen shortly after he stepped out of his car at around 8 am.

The police chief said investigators suspected that the gunmen had trailed him, and then fired shots at him at close range while he was about to enter his house.

Ambid said the wounded barangay chairman tried to run away in search of cover, but the gunmen caught up with him and finished him off while he was trying to hide in a sewer. 

Police said Amalla’s wife pleaded from a distance, and yelled, “Enough!”

The gunmen fled toward the direction of the town proper on a black motorcycle.

Crime scene investigators said they found six empty shells from a caliber .45 pistol.

The barangay chairman was rushed to the Caraga Regional Hospital and then moved to Surigao Provincial Hospital. He died in the afternoon while being rushed to another hospital in another region.

The San Francisco police theorized that Amalla’s killing had something to do with his role in the now halted mining operation in the village.

“There were reports that some people got mad at him because the mining was stopped,” Ambid told Rappler.

He said some villagers were also claiming compensation because their properties were damaged by the mining operations, and resented Amalla for the role he played.

The attack on Amala happened about a week after San Francisco Mayor Val Pinat ordered GoSun Siargao Waves Corporation to stop mining operations and the construction of a wharf and a road in Barangay Jubgan as the company operated in the village without permits.

The barangay chief had allowed the mining firm, partly owned by Surigao del Norte assistant provincial administrator Ramon Gotinga, to operate in his village.

San Francisco was declared a mining-free zone by the town council in 2014. – Rappler.com