2 dead in Kidapawan City ambush

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January 5, 2026 | 5:42pm

COTABATO CITY — Two individuals, one of whom was arrested in a police anti-narcotics operation in 2021, were killed in an ambush in Barangay Lanao, Kidapawan City, Cotabato province, on Sunday, January 4.

Local executives and officials of the Kidapawan City Police Station told reporters on Monday, January 5, that the ambush victims, Romel Pason Canson and Crystylmae Taniongon Nuñez, were together in a silver Mitsubishi Mirage when they were attacked by gunmen along a highway in Purok 6, Barangay Lanao. 

Canson and Nuñez were both residents of Kidapawan City, the capital of Cotabato province in Region 12.

Canson died instantly from multiple gunshot wounds sustained in the attack, while Nuñez was declared dead on arrival at a hospital where emergency responders brought her for treatment.

Officials from the Cotabato Provincial Police Office and local executives told reporters that Nuñez had been arrested in a police anti-narcotics operation in nearby Matalam town in 2021.

During that operation, plainclothes policemen seized shabu from her in an entrapment operation, which was conducted with the help of tipsters aware of her alleged drug trafficking activities.

Barangay officials and police investigators who responded to the incident that left Canson and Nuñez dead told reporters that the duo's assailants escaped immediately using a getaway car, a black Nissan Almera, without license plates.

Barangay officials, investigators and intelligence agents from various units of Police Regional Office 12 in Kidapawan City are cooperating to identify the killers of Canson and Nuñez for prosecution.