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John Unson - Philstar.com
August 22, 2026 | 5:58pm
A policeman inspects the vehicle of the couple gunmen ambushed in a bridge at the border of Pikit, Cotabato in Region 12, and Pagalungan, Maguindanao del Sur in the Bangsamoro region.
Philstar.com / John Unson
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A civilian police station employee and two women were killed while two others were wounded in separate gun attacks in three neighboring Central Mindanao provinces within just two days.
Jonathan Juan was riding his Honda Click motorcycle from Cotabato City when he was ambushed on Saturday morning, August 22, by gunmen in Barangay Dalumangkob in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte in the Bangsamoro region.
Capt. Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters at noon Saturday that Juan, a non-uniformed staff member in the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack, whose perpetrators immediately escaped using a getaway motorcycle.
A man armed with a pistol shot dead on Friday morning, August 21, a female ethnic Maguindanaon villager, Tarhata Samad, while she was inside a roadside eatery in Barangay Semba in Datu Odin Sinsuat town also in Maguindanao del Norte.
Salanguit said a woman also inside the establishment, Soraya Ali, was hit by a stray bullet as Samad’s attacker repeatedly shot her with a pistol.
Ali was immediately brought by emergency responders and personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station to a hospital in Cotabato City for treatment, according to Salanguit.
About three hours later, gunmen killed Colie Mar Sugata-on and seriously wounded her husband, Orlan, in an ambush at a bridge on the border of Pikit town in Cotabato province in Region 12 and Pagalungan in Maguindanao del Sur, also a component province of the Bangsamoro region.
Salanguit and officials of the Police Regional Office 12 had separately told reporters that the couple, residing in Kidapawan City in Cotabato province, were together in a multicab, loaded with coconut seedlings that they were to deliver to a buyer in Barangay Takepan in Pikit, when they were attacked by gunmen while crossing through the Pagalungan Bridge.
The attack left Sugata-on dead and her husband wounded. Their attackers also managed to immediately escape riding motorcycles without license plates.
