Seemingly a repeat of the tragic Manila hostage-taking incident, gunmen wearing police and military uniforms flagged down a passenger bus in a remote area in Lanao del Norte early Thursday and mercilessly shot two policemen and two bus employees in front of terrified passengers.

The incident happened while everyone is still talking about the brutal death of a dismissed police officer and eight foreign hostages in a botched rescue operation in Manila on Monday.

Senior Superintendent Orlando Benas, director of the Lanao del Norte Police, said the gunmen also burned the RTMI bus after the shooting to the shock of some 40 passengers who were first ordered to go out of the vehicle at the vicinity of Barangay Balili in Kapatagan town at around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Benas said they are looking into the extortion angle as the motive behind the incident, noting that the gunmen initially demanded to see the bus conductor Arkie Bastasas and the driver Jaime Duhaylunsod whom they shot later at close range.

“The initial information is that the gunmen are mad at the RTMI management, we don’t know if they demanded something and was turned down that’s why they did this,” said Benas.

“Unfortunately, they also shot and killed two of our personnel who were then escorting the passenger bus,” he said.

However, Major General Romeo Lustestica, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said the gunmen have been asking P25 to P30 million from the RTMI management as payment for the four people who died in a bus accident in Misamis Oriental a few weeks ago.

“Passengers of the ill-fated bus overheard the perpetrators speaking in one of the local Lanao dialects that when translated meant ‘Di pa tapos ang paghihiganti’ (our vengeance is not yet over)," said Lustestica.

Another angle being looked at is a long-time dispute for the transport franchise in Lanao del Norte, he said.

Lustestica said that the atrocity is not the first time since a similar incident occurred almost in the same area on August 1.

Benas identified the two cops as Police Officers 3 Rosalito Obatay and Jovito Cabigas, adding that three of the victims were shot as soon as they went down from the vehicle while one of the cops was shot inside the bus.

“It is a standard operating procedure here that passenger bus passing Lanao del Norte is being escorted for security reasons, particularly the airconditioned ones,” said Benas.

The official said the two bus marshals did not notice any threat since the gunmen were clad in police uniform and even used a police checkpoint during the incident.

“Actually, the bus was flagged down in a decoy checkpoint,” said Benas, adding that they are yet to identify the perpetrators although initial investigation revealed that it was a group of ragtag bandits engaged in extortion activities.

“Pursuit operations are on-going,” he added.