Police probers are still clueless on the fatal ambush on Thursday, July 24, 2025, of a brother of a mayor in a newly-created Bangsamoro town in Cotabato province.
Brig. Arnold Ardiente, director of the Police Regional Office-12, and his counterpart in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, are cooperating in putting a closure to the incident that left Aladin Madih Mascud dead.
Mascud’s older sibling, Duma, is incumbent mayor of Kadayangan, one of the eight new Bangsamoro towns in Cotabato province, created last year by the 80-member Bangsamoro parliament via separate enabling measures.
Lt. Col. Benhur Catcatan, chief of the Midsayap municipal police, told reporters on Friday that Mascud and his wife were together in a sports utility vehicle, en route to the town proper of Kadayangan from Midsayap, Cotabato, when they were attacked by gunmen at Barangay Kapinpilan in the municipality, killing him instantly.
The ambushers had also shot and wounded Mascud’s wife, Anisa.
Catcatan, citing accounts of witnesses, said the armed men who attacked the couple immediately escaped using getaway motorcycles.
He said investigators are still trying to identify the assailants of the Mascuds with the help of local executives in the adjoining Kadayangan and Midsayap towns.
Members of the multi-sector Midsayap Municipal Peace and Order Council and traditional Moro leaders in Kadayangan are helping police investigators identify the culprits for prosecution. (July 25, 2025, JFU, Cotabato City)