A murder suspect, also a known longtime narcotics trafficker, was killed while his companion was arrested in a police operation on Tuesday night, August 19, 2025 in Barangay Tamontaka in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte.
Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Wednesday that personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, led by their chief, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, were forced to neutralize one of the three wanted persons they were to arrest then, Buto Butingkol, when he pulled out a gun and opened fire, provoking a gunfight.
Butingkol was declared dead on arrival at a hospital where he was brought by policemen and civilian emergency responders for treatment.
De Guzman said Madin and his subordinates and policemen from different units of PRO-BAR were out to peacefully serve the slain Butingkol and his companions, Pepe Butingkol, Musanip Butingkol. Faizal Razak and Dave Midtimbang, an arrest warrant in the operation that went awry.
All of them were together charged with murder before the Regional Court Branch 27 in Cotabato City.
Midtimbang, also wanted for other crimes, was cornered and immediately cuffed by Madin’s team after they felled the uncooperative Butingkol with their service firearms.
The other targets of the operation managed to run away, now subject of an extensive joint military-police manhunt.
De Guzman said Midtimbang is now in their custody, awaiting prosecution for the criminal cases against him pending in different courts.
Photo shows emergency responders attending to the unconscious Butingkol while at the entrance area to the emergency room of the Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City where he was declared dead on arrival by doctors. (August 20, 2025, Cotabato City, Bangsamoro Region)