Search for culprits in Maguindanao anti-shabu operation on

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Policemen are still searching for two of four drug dealers who killed two anti-narcotics agents and wounded two others in a botched entrapment operation on Friday, November 15, in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Jaime Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Saturday, November 16, that their pursuit operations are supported by Army units in the municipality.

Macapaz has assured of ample support for the medication of Patrolmen Jonel Ramos and Eddie Sugarol, who both sustained bullet wounds in the incident, now confined in a hospital.

The entrapment operation that went awry, supposedly targeting four shabu dealers, left two other members of PRO-BAR’s Police Regional Drug Enforcement Unit, Cpl. Kirt Sipin and Patrolwoman Roselyn Bulias, dead.

Macapaz said PRO-BARMM shall also provide their families with monetary assistance needed for their burial.

The slain and wounded PRO-BAR personnel, disguised as civilians, were in a team out to buy a kilo of shabu, worth P6.8 million, from four men at the Crossing Simuay area in Sultan Kudarat, but the targets of the operation pulled out guns and opened fire when then sensed that they were dealing with law-enforcement agents, provoking a gunfight.

Two drug dealers, Suhod Kasim and Ting Katulangan, who were wounded in the encounter, are now in the custody of PRO-BAR.

Two companions of Kasim and Katulangan managed to escape towards a nearby hinterland when they ran out of ammunition, leaving behind their white pick-up truck, immediately impounded by the Sultan Kudarat municipal police force that responded to the incident.

Villagers said the runaway companions of Kasim and Katulangan, whom they identified as Said and Muksir, were also both slightly wounded in the incident.

Macapaz said the P6.8 million worth of shabu seized during the operation shall be used as evidence in prosecuting all four of them for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.