Town councilor hurt, aide killed in Maguindanao del Sur ambush

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December 5, 2025 | 6:51pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A Moro municipal councilor sustained a non-life-threatening wound in an ambush in Barangay Tuka in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao del Sur on Thursday, December 4, but his aide was not as lucky.

Officials of the Mamasapano Municipal Police Station and local executives said on Friday that Samsudin Manib died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack, which left Montasir Dimalido, an incumbent municipal councilor in nearby Sultan sa Barongis town, injured.

Officials of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and Lt. Lou Christian Villones, Mamasapano municipal police chief, separately told reporters on Friday that Manib and Dimalido and another member of the Sultan sa Barongis municipal council, Abdulmanap Biang, were together in a silver Toyota Innova, on their way home from Cotabato City, when they were attacked by gunmen positioned along the highway in Barangay Tuka.

Manib immediately succumbed to a bullet wound in the upper torso. Dimalido, who was driving the Toyota Innova then, was hit by a bullet in the butt. 

The unscathed Biang and Dimalido are known staunch supporters of the joint peacekeeping and law-enforcement operations in their municipality of the police and the military.

Their attackers managed to escape before responding barangay officials, volunteer community watchmen and members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit from a nearby roadside detachment could reach the scene.

Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters that local executives in Maguindanao's adjoining Mamasapano and Sultan sa Barongis municipalities have assured to help police investigators identify the gunmen behind the atrocity.

Police officials in Maguindanao del Sur said they are certain that it was either Dimalido, or Biang, who was the target of the attack.