COTABATO CITY (September 21, 2025) — Policemen arrested on Saturday, September 20, a known drug dependent who, instead of helping a motorist who figured last week in an accident, killed and robbed the victim of his money and other belongings instead.

Local executives in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte told reporters on Sunday, September 21, that the 35-year-old suspect, Palao Bangon Mlok, was arrested by a police team at his hideout in Barangay Bitu, acting on tips by neighbors and traditional Moro community leaders about his presence in the area.

Mlok was tagged by his own relatives and residents of Barangay Bitu as responsible for the gruesome killing, using a machete, of the 35-year-old Daniel Navarro Datulayta, who approached him and his companions, together drinking liquor and sniffing shabu then in a roadside waiting shed, after his motorcycle crashed in a stretch of a highway nearby.

Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, chief of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, told reporters on Sunday that Datulayta, a construction worker, was on his way home to Barangay Kalawag 2 in Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat, from Cotabato City, when he figured in an accident.

Madin, citing accounts of witnesses, said Mlok, after killing the badly injured Datulayta, took his money and other personal belongings and buried him in an isolated spot in Barangay Bitu.

With the help of villagers, policemen and Moro community elders managed to exhume the corpse of Datulayta, which they immediately turned over to his family for proper burial.

Madin and his subordinate-policemen had also detained two companions of Mlok, but asked reporters to withhold their names, in the meantime, while probers and local officials are still trying to establish their involvement in the atrocity.

“The duo promised to help us build a strong criminal case against Mlok,” Madin said.

Residents of Barangay Bitu had told reporters that Mlok is a heavy liquor drinker and is addicted to shabu and marijuana.

They also confirmed to reporters that he is a longtime shabu and marijuana trafficker, who has contacts in Datu Odin Sinsuat and in nearby Cotabato City.

Officials of different intelligence units under the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region had relayed to reporters that Mlok had eluded several attempts to entrap him in different areas in the past 24 months.

Photo shows volunteer community watchmen exhuming the corpse of Datulayta from the shallow grave where he was buried by Mlok.