COTABATO CITY (October 4, 2025, Saturday) — Gunmen killed a Sangguniang Kabataan chairman and wounded two others, including a policeman, in an ambush at a busy thoroughfare in the center of this city at noontime Saturday, October 4.
Prince Mohaz Rafsanjanie Matanog, Sangguniang Kabataan chairman of Cotabato City’s Barangay Poblacion 5 and a third-year engineering student at the Cotabato City State University, died instantly from multiple bullet wound sustained in the attack.
The ambush left his relative, Muamar Salvador Matanog, seriously wounded.
The two of them were together in a red Toyota Raize, on their way somewhere, when they were attacked by gunmen at the intersection of Jose Lim, Sr. Street and Sinsuat Avenue, not too distant from the Cotabato City Police Precinct 1.
The ambushers also shot and wounded the on-duty Patrolman Norsaiden Laguiali who responded to the incident.
Their attackers had escaped using getaway motorcycles before responding policemen could reach the scene.
Cotabato City’s police director, Col. Jibin Bongacayao, and his immediate superior, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters right after the incident that investigators will ask help from relatives of the slain Matanog and barangay officials in Poblacion 5 in identifying the gunmen behind the atrocity.
Police investigators and forensic experts found 92 empty bullet shells scattered in the crime scene.