ZAMBOANGA CITY: A lone gunman killed a school principal in a daring attack in the capital town of Bongao in the remote southern Philippine province of Tawi-Tawi, police said.

Police said that the gunman shot Conchita Francisco, 62, short-ly after she stepped outside a Catholic church. One woman was also slightly wounded after being hit by the stray bullet, said Senior Superintendent Rodelio Jocson, the provincial police chief.

He said that Francisco, the principal of the Mindanao State University-Laboratory Elementary School, was shot at close range during a power outage. “She came from mass and was shot outside the church. One woman who was near her was also hit by stray bullet and slightly injured,” Jocson told The Manila Times.

No individual claimed responsibility for the attack, but Jocson said that the killing was probably connected to the victim’s work. “This is murder and we are looking into several angles and among this is the woman’s job as school principal,” Jocson said.

He added that one tricycle driver who was near the church witnessed the attack, but he refused to give any statement to the police for fear of reprisal. “There is a witness, but we cannot get anything from him. He is probably scared to talk to us and fears for his life,” he said.

Public school teacher seized
In a related development, at least a dozen gunmen barged into a house and abducted a government teacher in Zamboanga City, reports said.

Radio station dxRZ Radyo Agong said that gunmen seized Flordeliza Ongchua Ramones, a teacher in Labuan school, and escaped on a motorized boat.

No individual or group claimed responsibility for the latest abduction that occurred in the village of Labuan.

Police and military officials were not immediately available to make a statement about the incident, but kidnaps-for-ransom is not uncommon in Zamboanga City.

In 2009, suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels also kidnapped three government teachers—Freires Quizon, Janette delos Reyes and Rafael Mayorada—in Zamboanga City.

And three more teachers—Jocelyn Enriquez, Jocelyn Inion and Noime Mande—in the town of Naga in the neighboring province of Zamboanga Sibugay also in the same year.

Meanwhile, police said that the Tawi-Tawi school principal was a devout Catholic and frequently went to hear mass in Bongao and had been appointed principal just last year. It was not immediately known whether the assailant is a hired killer or a member of the Abu Sayyaf group.

In 2008, Abu Sayyaf militants raided a Catholic convent at the compound of the Notre Dame High School in Tawi-Tawi’s South Ubian town and killed Father Rey Roda in a botched kidnapping.

Roda was praying when 10 gunmen barged in the convent and seized the priest and dragged him outside, but was eventually killed when he struggled to free himself.

It was not the first time that the Abu Sayyaf killed a priest. In 2002, militants also kidnapped, tortured and killed a Claretian priest Roel Gallardo in Basilan province, several nautical miles south of Zamboanga City.

In 1997, the Abu Sayyaf also assassinated a Catholic bishop Benjamin de Jesus in Jolo town in Sulu province. He was shot several times outside his church in a broad daylight attack.

Three years later, the Abu Sayyaf also ambushed a Catholic missionary, Benjamin Inocencio, in Jolo town while buying gifts for poor Muslims. The Abu Sayyaf also randomly attacked and bombed Catholic churches in Tawi-Tawi, Sulu and in Mindanao the past decades.

The Abu Sayyaf, which means “Bearer of the Sword,” was originally fighting for a separate Islamic state similar to Afghanistan, but resorted to banditry and kidnappings for ransom after its Libyan firebrand founder, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, was killed in 1998 in a gun battle with policemen in Basilan province.