COTABATO CITY — Gunmen shot dead a bemedalled police intelligence agent in an attack at the supposedly guarded parking area of a shopping mall in Cotabato City on Sunday night, December 1.
Officials of the Cotabato City Police Office and Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters on Monday, December 2, that Master Sgt. John Manuel Bongcawil died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the attack.
Bongcawil, of the intelligence unit in the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office, is known to companions as a hardworking policeman who participated in covert operations in recent months that resulted in the arrest of more than 10 elusive suspects in high-profile crimes and acts of terror.
Bongcawil, his wife, and their grade school children had just emerged from the City Mall in an upland area in Cotabato City and were walking toward their car parked in the establishment’s underground parking area when two men approached him and repeatedly shot him with pistols, killing him instantly.
His assailants managed to immediately escape using a getaway vehicle.
Macapaz said investigators in the Cotabato City police force and barangay officials who have jurisdiction over the area where the City Mall is located are cooperating in identifying the killers of Bongcawil for immediate prosecution.
Macapaz said they are convinced that the gun attack that left him dead was work-related.