Soldier kills five colleagues in Basilan camp before being gunned down

Manila: An army corporal went amok on Thursday morning inside a camp in Basilan, killing five of his comrades before being shot dead by colleagues.

The Philippine Army refused to provide the name of the corporal pending notification of his colleagues but officials said the erring soldier had just came back from vacation when the incident happened at around 8:30am.

“The shooter killed five members of Bravo Company and wounded nine others before responding personnel was able to neutralise him,” Col Benjamin Hao, spokesman of the Philippine Army said.

Hao said the army is conducting an investigation into the incident what includes looking into the mental state of the soldier before the incident took place.

He added that among the fatalities were two junior officers, a Lieutenant and a 2nd lieutenant as well as five other enlisted personnel.

The wounded included another 1st lieutenant, eight low ranking soldiers as well as one civilian.

Based on information provided by Hao, the soldier was a member of a 60mm mortar team of the 64th Infantry Battalion at Upper Cabengbeng, Sumisip, Basilan.

Mortars are indirect fire weapons that are served by a crew of two to three soldiers.

According to Hao, the victims had been holding an informal, in the field, religious gathering when the suspect suddenly fired his service weapon, an M-16 assault rifle, towards the direction of the victims.

Soldiers going berserk in the field, especially those in so-called “hardship posts” far from their family and under constant threat of armed incounters, are not unusual in the Philippines, a country that has been fighting one conflict after another with separatists and communist insurgents for more than four decades.

The last similar incident took place also in Basilan last year where a marine was shot dead by another soldier in Maluso, Basilan.

Also in 2014, a police trooper was killed by a colleague inside their base in Tawi-Tawi further south of Basilan.