Personnel of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region arrested on Monday, June 9, a former policeman who had shot dead a bemedalled intelligence agent in the parking area of a mall in this city last December.
PRO-BAR’s director, Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, confirmed to reporters on Tuesday, June 10, the arrest of the 33-year-old Abdulpata Maguid Pantacan, who is wanted for the murder on December 1, 2024 of Senior Master Sgt. John Manuel Bongcawil in Cotabato City.
Bongcawil, who was residing in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte, was a member then of a PRO-BAR intelligence unit.
Pantacan originally belonged to a unit of PRO-BAR in Basilan, but got booted from the police service for absence without official leave after he was implicated in heinous crimes in the province.
Like Bongcawil, Pantacan is also a resident of Parang, where PRO-BAR’s regional headquarters is located.
Pantacan was cornered by operatives from different police units and personnel of the Cotabato City Police Office, led by their director, Col. Jibin Bongcayao, near a Catholic church along the busy Almonte Street in Cotabato City on Monday afternoon.
He is wanted in the Regional Trial Court Branch 27 in Cotabato City for the murder of Bongcawil. The RTC Branch 27 issued on February 24, 2025 a warrant for his arrest, without a recommended amount of bail for his temporary release.
Macapaz said Pantacan is also facing a carnapping case in a court in Koronadal City, the capital of South Cotabato.
Officials of PRO-BAR, Bongcawil’s wife and other relatives are certain that Pantacan was hired to kill him with a pistol while approaching his car parked in the premises of a mall along Governor Gutierrez Avenue in an uptown area in Cotabato City five months ago.
Bongcawil had received several citations for his involvement in the successful entrapment of drug dealers and the arrest of elusive law offenders, many of them wanted in different courts for high-profile crimes, in PRO-BAR operations in Cotabato City and in the Bangsamoro region’s adjoining Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur provinces.
Photo show police officers at the wake of Bongcawil, who was buried at a cemetery in Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao del Norte. (JFU, June 10, 2025)
