PNP, Army officials expand joint Maguindanao del Sur security operations

April 3, 2026 | 3:52pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The police and military shall expand cooperation in maintaining law and order in the troubled Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao del Sur and nearby areas, beset with security concerns that municipal officials can hardly address despite the powers vested in them by the Local Government Code.

The chief of the Philippine National Police, Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., and Army Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the Western Mindanao Command, together presided over a security conference in Shariff Aguak on Thursday, April 2, where they agreed to intensify the joint PNP-military peacekeeping thrusts in Maguindanao del Sur to prevent a repeat of the deadly incidents in its municipalities in recent weeks.

Five policemen were killed while three others were wounded in an ambush on Saturday night near the Camp Akilan in Shariff Aguak, where the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office (MSPPO) is located.

Two powerful explosions rocked two areas in the nearby Radja Buayan town on Wednesday, causing panic among villagers.

The newly-installed Maguindanao del Sur police director, Col. Michael John Mangahis, Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office, Brig. Gen Edgar Catu of the Army’s 601^st Infantry Brigade and his superior, Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, who is at the helm of 6th Infantry Division, were also present in Thursday’s conference at the provincial police headquarters in Camp Akilan in Shariff Aguak.

Shariff Aguak is one of 24 towns in the hostile Maguindanao del Sur province in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Cagara, who is overseeing the 6th ID’s anti-terror Joint Task Force Central, and Catu, who, as commander of the 601st Infantry Brigade, has jurisdiction over Army units in Maguindanao del Sur, separately assured Nartatez and De Guzman then of their support to the law-enforcement activities of all police units in the province.

Talks and text messages have been spreading around since Monday, insinuating that remnants of the long-defunct Dawlah Islamiya were responsible for Saturday night’s ambush of policemen at a stretch of highway connecting the town center of Shariff Aguak and the Camp Akilan.

The attack, which left five patrolmen from the 2nd Provincial Mobile Force Company of the MSPPO dead, was reportedly meant to stir an impression that the now non-functional Dawlah Islamiya is still capable of perpetrating acts of terror anywhere in Maguindanao del Sur and in nearby provinces.

Units of PRO-BAR and 6th ID, local officials, Moro datus and leaders of the Islamic religious community in BARMM had worked out, via backchannel dialogues, the surrender of almost 2,000 members of the allies Dawlah Islamiya and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in the past four years, all of them reintroduced to mainstream society.

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