2 cops killed in Sultan Kudarat ambush

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two policemen belonging to a company of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 12 of the Police Regional Office 12 were killed in an ambush on Tuesday night, July 7, in Barangay Tinumigues in Lambayong town in Sultan Kudarat province.

Local executives and officials of the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office told reporters on Wednesday that Patrolman Apollo Morante Pagurayan and Patrolman Joerel Basilan Bullos, both wearing uniforms, were riding a motorcycle together, on their way to their detachment from a public service mission, when they were attacked by men armed with assault rifles positioned along a highway in Barangay Tinumigues.

Pagurayan died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack. Bullos was declared dead on arrival by doctors at a hospital where barangay emergency responders and policemen brought him for treatment.

Pagurayan and Bullos both belong to the 1202nd Company of the RMFB 12, a rapid deployment unit of PRO 12 that has personnel deployed in areas where there are remnants of the two now-defunct terror groups, the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

Major Leonel Delasan, chief of the Lambayong Municipal Police Station, said the group that waylaid Pagurayan and Bullos managed to escape before responding barangay officials and volunteer community watchmen could reach the scene.

Police Brig. Gen. Alan Manibog, director of PRO-BAR, and the commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, separately told reporters on Wednesday that police investigators and officials of the intelligence units of 6th ID assigned in the adjoining provinces of Sultan Kudarat in Region 12 and Maguindanao del Sur in the Bangsamoro region are cooperating in identifying the gunmen behind the atrocity for prosecution.