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John Unson - Philstar.com
May 12, 2026 | 7:03pm
The vehicle of the gun attack victims plunged into a roadside irrigation canal while they were fleeing from the area where they were attacked and robbed of their money.
Philstar.com / John Unson
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two Moro men were killed while another was wounded in a gun attack in Midsayap, Cotabato on Monday, May 11, perpetrated by a duo from whom they were supposed to buy gold jewelry but shot them with pistols instead and took their money before they fled.
The suspects are both from Malabang town in Lanao del Sur in the Bangsamoro region, according to municipal and barangay officials in Midsayap.
Local executives, among them Mayor Rolly Sacdalan, and officials of the Midsayap Municipal Police Station are cooperating in putting a closure to the incident that left Bhots Aguilar Gainal, 54, and his 43-year-old companion, Mohammad Salilama Tula, both dead.
The companion of the slain Gainal and Tula, Ferdausy Andig Guiamad, 32, was wounded in the incident.
Gainal and Tula, both from Cotabato City, are known gold jewelry traders. Guiamad, now confined to a hospital, resides in one of the barangays in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte. All three of them are ethnic Maguindanaons.
Municipal officials and Col. Ramel Hojilla, Cotabato provincial police director, told reporters on Tuesday that the victims first met the two men, offering to sell gold jewelry, at Purok Santan in Barangay Poblacion 8 in Midsayap.
The two men reportedly pulled out pistols then, opened fire and took the money of the victims with them as they hurriedly escaped using a getaway motorcycle.
Municipal and barangay officials said the victims managed to board their white Nissan Navarra pick-up truck, bearing license plates LAN 5866, and, as they sped away, veered and plunged into a roadside irrigation dike when its wounded driver, Gainal, passed out.
Emergency responders immediately took Guiamad, Tula and Gainal and his unscathed 17-year-old son out of their vehicle that fell in the irrigation dike and transported them to a hospital.
Tula and Gainal were both declared dead on arrival by physicians at the hospital where policemen and municipal medics brought them for treatment.
Hojilla, his subordinates in the Midsayap police, and Sacdalan, who, as mayor, is chairman of their multi-sector municipal peace and order council, are cooperating in identifying the perpetrators of the atrocity for prosecution.
