An agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and an alleged shabu trafficker were killed, while three members of the Philippine Marines were wounded in a shootout with a group allegedly circulating narcotics in Barangay Paniongan in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi on Sunday morning, August 9.
Regional officials of the Bangsamoro police based at Camp SK Pendatun in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte, told reporters at noon Sunday that the incident left an agent of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Ernie Jim Dayag, deadl and three members of the Navy’s 4th Marine Battalion, including its commanding officer, Lt. Col. Richard Malabanan, wounded.
Local executives, including Manan Rasul, chairman of Barangay Paniongan, reported that agents of the PDEA-BARMM, Marine servicemen led by Malabanan and personnel from different units in Tawi-Tawi of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region were supposed to entrap a group of alleged drug dealers in Mapanbubu area in Paniongan, but the operation turned awry when the targets of the operation provoked a gunfight.
Gunmen from houses around the agreed trade-off spot came out when they learned that their companions had sold shabu to combined PDEA-BARMM agents and Marine and police personnel and opened fire, sparking an encounter.
One of the gunmen who attacked the joint PDEA-BARMM, police and Marine law enforcement team was killed in the ensuing exchange of gunfire, according to local executives in Bongao, capital town of Tawi-Tawi, one of the five provinces in BARMM.
Malabanan, who sustained a bullet wound to the head, was immediately airlifted by a Philippine Air Force team to a hospital in Zamboanga City for treatment.
Local executives and provincial police officials in Tawi-Tawi said the heavily armed drug dealers involved in the bloody clash who managed to escape are now the subject of a joint police-military manhunt.