COTABATO CITY (January 3, 2025) — Policemen killed in a shootout late Thursday one of the two men behind the grenade attack on midnight Wednesday in Barangay Dalapitan in Matalam town in Cotabato province that injured 22 New Year revelers.

The blast victims, among them elementary pupils and high school students, were at one spot in Barangay Dalapitan, then setting off firecrackers and pyrotechnics, when the slain Hammad Ansa, riding a motorcycle driven by an accomplice came close, threw at them a fragmentation grenade and fled after a powerful explosion ripped through the area.

Acting on tips by villagers, pursuing policemen from the Matalam Municipal Police Station and other units of the Police Regional Office 12 in Cotabato province found Ansa on Thursday night in Barangay Kilada in the municipality.

Local officials said instead of yielding peacefully, Ansa pulled out a pulled out a .45 caliber pistol and opened fire at the policemen approaching his location from two directions, sparking a gunfight that resulted in his death.

Lt. Col. Arniel Melocotones, Matalam municipal police chief, said on Friday that Ansa was declared dead on arrival by doctors at a hospital where he was brought by local government emergency responders for treatment.

Local executives and Police Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of PRO 12, separately told reporters on Friday that it was villagers and traditional Moro leaders in Matalam, aware of the involvement of Ansa in the grenade attack on midnight Wednesday that left 22 villagers wounded, who led policemen to his exact location in Purok 6 in Barangay Kilada.

Ardiente and Cotabato’s provincial police director, Col. Jerson Birrey, separately said they are grateful to the Moro community leaders and members of the multi-sector Matalam Municipal Peace and Order Council for having led the operatives from different police units in the province to the hideout of Ansa.

Agents from intelligence units of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade in different towns in Cotabato are helping the police and local executives search for Ansa’s companion who have reportedly fled to a secluded area close to the Ligawasan Delta in the province.

Moro leaders in Cotabato’s adjoining Matalam, Kabacan and Pikit towns told reporters on Friday that Ansa was a large-scale shabu peddler, who shared fractions of his earnings to the few remaining leaders of the now both defunct allies Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

Photo shows the slain Ansa sprawled on the ground, surrounded by local government emergency responders and policemen.