Police intelligence agent shot dead in Cotabato City
COTABATO CITY — Gunmen shot dead a police intelligence agent in an attack at the supposedly guarded parking area of a shopping mall here on Sunday night.
Officials of the Cotabato City Police Office and Brig. Gen. Romeo J. Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters on Monday that Master Sgt. John Manuel V. Bongcawil died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the attack.
Mr. Bongcawil of the intelligence unit in the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office participated in covert operations in recent months that resulted in the arrest of more than ten elusive suspects in high-profile crimes and acts of terror.
Mr. Bongcawil, his wife, and their grade school children had just emerged from the mall in an upland area in Cotabato City and were walking towards 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.
Mr. Macapaz said investigators in the Cotabato City police force and barangay officials who have jurisdiction over the area where the mall is located are cooperating in identifying the killers of Mr. Bongcawil for immediate prosecution.
Mr. Macapaz said they are convinced that the gun attack that left him dead was work-related. — John Felix M. Unson
