Three men in a heavily-armed private group were wounded in an encounter with soldiers in Talitay, Maguindanao del Sur on Wednesday night, June
The gunfight erupted when the three gunmen, now in a hospital, and their companions opened fire at personnel of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion that their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Robert Betita, dispatched late Wednesday to Barangay Poblacion in Talitay to disengage them and a rival group, exchanging shots then that caused panic among villagers.
Brig. Gen. Edgar Catu, commander of the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade, said on Friday, June 6, that soldiers first seized from the three men, who sustained bullet wounds in the encounter, four military-type combat rifles before transporting them to a hospital.
Soldiers had also confiscated from them some P60,000 worth of shabu that they immediately turned over to officials of the Talitay Municipal Police Station.
Catu and his immediate superior, Major Gen. Donald Gumiran of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, separately told reporters on Friday that soldiers in the area had been directed to use force against both groups if sighted near any of the Moro dwelling enclaves in Talitay.
Gumiran had urged the local executives in Talitay to settle the dispute between the two feuding armed factions.
Members of the multi-sector Talitay Municipal Peace and Order Council said the leaders of the two enemy groups, locked in squabbles for control of areas where they peddle shabu, had supported rival candidates for local elective posts during the May 12 electoral exercise, escalating the tension between them.
Photo show the firearms seized by soldiers from three gunmen in an operation in Talitay, now in the custody of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion. (JFU, June 6, 2025)
