//Has anyone thought this story through, and considered a couple of the facts in the story...
Or have we got too caught up in the narrative to think clearly? //
Thank God "we" have got SP to provide important insights which could easily be missed.
On your demographic point, SP, the Philippines has a Muslim population of 5+% I think. There are Muslim separatists and various al-Qaeda type groups performing terrorist acts. Here's a recent example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/canadian-hostage-beheaded-by-armed-islamists-in-philippines-as-i/
I don't know whether the Filipina is Muslim or not, but you do understand how the modus operandi (random attack on strangers using a sharp weapon) might remind some readers of other recent attacks.
Noticing the similarity is not the same as jumping to a conclusion, although why the jump deserves "comprehensively dim" rather than merely "premature" I don't know. Let's take bets: what is this woman's religion? The "smart money" doesn't go on Mormonsm, does it?