.png){kind=logo}
1 hour ago
1
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
John Unson - Philstar.com
September 24, 2026 | 2:14pm
The crime scene along an unlit stretch of a highway in Barangay Ladia, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte, where two off-duty non-uniformed soldiers were killed in an ambush on Sept. 23, 2026.
Philstar.com / John Unson
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two off-duty non-uniformed soldiers were killed in an ambush at an unlit stretch of a highway in Barangay Ladia in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte at about dusk Wednesday, September 23.
Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and senior officials of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division separately told reporters on Thursday that the slain Pfc. Jobert Labuson, 44, at Pfc. John Mark Dumaguing both belong to the 7th Infantry Battalion.
Labuson and Dumaguing, riding a motorcycle together, had just procured food supplies from stores in another barangay and were returning to their roadside detachment in Barangay Ladia when they were attacked by men armed with pistols.
Their attackers, also riding motorcycles, immediately escaped, leaving them sprawled at one side of the highway, their gunshot wounds bleeding profusely.
Labuson and Dumaguing died, about two hours after they were waylaid, at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City, where their companions in the 7th IB and emergency responders brought them for treatment.
Local executives and traditional Moro community leaders in Sultan Kudarat, one of the 12 towns in Maguindanao del Norte, had condemned the incident, which left the two soldiers belonging to the 7th IB, a unit of the 6th ID, dead.
The scene of the ambush is less than 20 kilometers north of Cotabato City, where the regional capitol of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region is located.
