By Edwin Fernandez
COTABATO CITY – A suspect in the murder of a police officer in a mall parking lot here last December was arrested Monday afternoon by the Philippine National Police Anti-Kidnapping Group (PNP-AKG) and the local police.
Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, regional director of the Police Regional Office- Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), identified the suspect as 33-year-old Abdulpata Maguid Pantacan.
Pantacan is a former police officer previously assigned to the Basilan police provincial office and a resident of Parang, Maguindanao del Norte.
“He was the primary suspect in the Dec. 1, 2024, murder of Police Senior Master Sergeant (PSMS) John Manuel Bongcawil at the carpark of CityMall of Cotabato,” Macapaz said in a radio interview on Tuesday.
At the time of the murder, Bongcawil, an intelligence officer from the Maguindanao del Norte police office, was with his wife and children and was about to leave the parking area when he was shot in front of his family. Like Pantacan, Bongcawil was also a resident of Parang town.
Macapaz said Pantacan has outstanding warrants of arrest for murder, carjacking, and other crimes, issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 27 in Cotabato City. According to Macapaz, Pantacan has gone absent without official leave (AWOL) due to legal troubles stemming from various crimes he allegedly committed.
Following a weeklong surveillance operation, the PNP-AKG and Cotabato City PNP arrested Pantacan near a barber shop along SK Pendatun Avenue, Cotabato City, at 4 p.m. Monday. He was unarmed and did not resist arrest.
Macapaz said the police are still actively hunting down the suspect’s possible cohorts in various criminal activities, including carjacking and alleged gun-for-hire operations.
“We are still establishing what motivated the suspect to kill PSMS Bongcawil,” he said. (PNA)
