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John Unson - Philstar.com
April 1, 2026 | 5:09pm
Policemen and soldiers are searching for the perpetrators of the two bombings in Rajah Buayan, Maguindanao del Sur on April 1, 2026, that triggered panic among residents.
Photo courtesy of Philstar.com / John Unson
RAJAH BUAYAN, Maguindanao del Sur — Two explosions, one in a residential area and the other targeting a vehicle carrying policemen, ripped through a town in Maguindanao del Sur on Wednesday morning, April 1, causing panic among villagers.
Officials from the Rajah Buayan Municipal Police Station and the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office told reporters at noon Wednesday that the first explosion occurred near the house of a close relative of Mayor Maruja Mastura in Barangay Sapakan.
Captain Steffie Salanguit, information officer of the Police Regional Office–Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said a roadside bomb went off along a stretch of highway connecting the town center of Rajah Buayan to the site of the first explosion, just as a vehicle carrying policemen dispatched to investigate the incident was passing by.
Gunmen then opened fire from a distance at the pickup truck carrying personnel of the Rajah Buayan police, which had pulled over just a few meters from where the roadside bomb exploded.
The gunmen immediately fled toward a nearby marshland, according to barangay officials.
No one was hurt in the explosions or the attack on the policemen, but the powerful blasts and bursts of automatic gunfire that reverberated across the two areas sent villagers running for their lives.
Residents of Rajah Buayan are still reeling from the impact of an ambush on a police team on Saturday night in nearby Shariff Aguak, which left five patrolmen dead and three others wounded. The injured policemen are now confined in a hospital.
Jaysen De Guzman, director of the PRO-BAR, said officials from their units in Maguindanao del Sur, along with intelligence agents from the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade and 6th Infantry Division, are working together to identify those behind the attacks on Wednesday morning in Rajah Buayan.
