Three dead in graduation shooting at top Philippines university

MANILA, July 24 (Reuters) – Three individuals died in a taking pictures at a college commencement ceremony within the Philippines’ capital area on Sunday, together with a former mayor from the unstable south of the nation, police mentioned.

Native Quezon Metropolis police chief Remus Medina mentioned the taking pictures appeared to have been an assassination of the previous mayor of the southern Lamitan metropolis, Rose Furigay.

The suspect, wounded in a shootout with a campus safety officer and arrested after a automobile chase, was now in custody and being interrogated, Medina informed reporters.

“He appears to be like like he was a decided murderer,” Medina mentioned, including he was discovered with two pistols.

Quezon is a part of the Manila capital area, an city sprawl of 16 cities house to greater than 13 million individuals.

Furigay was shot as she was about to attend the commencement of her daughter on the legislation faculty of Ateneo de Manila College, one of many nation’s most prestigious, Medina mentioned.

The suspect, who had no family on the commencement, was additionally a local of Lamitan metropolis in Basilan province, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf, a pro-Islamist State extremist group identified for its banditry and kidnapping.

The 2 others killed had been a campus safety officer and an unidentified male, the police mentioned.

Ateneo cancelled the commencement ceremony after the taking pictures.

Within the Southeast Asian nation, taking pictures incidents are sporadic, with house owners required to have permits to hold weapons in public. Personal safety officers within the Philippines carry both handguns or shotguns, and firearms are a typical sight in buying malls, places of work, banks, eating places and even colleges.

“We commit our legislation enforcement companies to totally and swiftly examine these killings and convey all concerned to justice,” Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr mentioned in a press release.

Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Enhancing by Christopher Cushing, Alexandra Hudson

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