Barangay watchman hurt in another Cotabato grenade attack

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January 10, 2026 | 5:46pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team (BPAT) member was slightly hurt in another grenade attack in Matalam town in Cotabato province on Friday, January 9, the second in just nine days.

The victim, who sustained a superficial shrapnel scratch on his face, and other BPAT members, all assigned to Barangay Estado in Matalam, were riding a dump truck, on their way home from an activity at the municipal center, when one of two men riding a motorcycle together, approaching from the opposite direction of the highway in Manubuan area in the municipality, threw at them a grenade that landed and went off along route.

Lt. Col. Arniel Melocotones, Matalam municipal police chief, and local executives separately told reporters on Saturday that the BPAT members were fortunate that the grenade did not fall on the cargo deck of the dump truck, whose driver was maneuvering then through the stretch of the highway in Manubuan quite fast.

The two men who perpetrated the grenade attack immediately motored away, now subject of a joint police and military manhunt.

Municipal and barangay officials are certain that Thursday’s supposed bombing of the cargo deck of the dump truck, carrying some 20 BPAT members, was related to the grenade attack in Barangay Dalapitan in Matalam at almost midnight on December 31 that left 22 New Year revellers, among them grade school pupils and high school students, wounded.

The bombing was also perpetrated by two men riding a motorcycle together.

The 22 Christian blast victims were at one spot in Barangay Dalapitan, setting off pyrotechnics and firecrackers, when one of two men riding a motorcycle together that came close hurled a grenade and escaped.

Pursuing policemen shot dead in a brief shootout the next day in Barangay Kilada in Matalam one of the two culprits, Hammad Ansa, a known large-scale dealer of shabu and marijuana.

Ansa was positively identified by barangay officials and traditional Moro leaders as the one who threw a grenade at the revelers gathered along the highway in Barangay Dalapitan.

It was the traditional Moro leaders and barangay officials in Kilada who reported his presence at one area in the barangay, enabling policemen to promptly launch a pursuit operation, supposedly meant to arrest him peacefully, but neutralized him instead when resisted, pulled out a pistol and opened fire.