Two security escorts of a businessman were killed in a brief clash with policemen tasked to search for firearms in their employer’s house in Barangay Bulakanon in Makilala, Cotabato before dawn Thursday, August 14, 2025

Col. Gilberto Tuzon, director of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office, announced at noontime Thursday that the shootout erupted when Jovito Regidor Roa and Paul Lacorte Pedroso, security escorts of the merchant Ramon Nacito Floresta, opened fire at the team dispatched to search for hidden firearms in his house.

Lt. Col. Rolly Oranza, Makilala municipal police chief, had told reporters that Roa and Pedroso died from bullet wounds sustained in the brief gunfight that left two policemen, Cpl. Jayson Jungco and Patrolman Christian Neyra, wounded.

Jungco and Neyra, who both belong to the 1203rd Company of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion-12 under the Police Regional Office-12, are now confined to a hospital.

The police team that carried out the raid had a search warrant from a court in Kidapawan city, signed by Judge Jose Tabosares, dated August 6, 2025.

Tuzon and Oranza had separately told reporters that policemen found two fragmentation grenades, two 5.56 M16 combat rifles, a Glock .40 caliber pistol, a Norinco .40 caliber pistol and ammunition of various calibers in Floresta’s house in Purok Gumasak in Barangay Bulakanon.

Floresta, engaged in large-scale agri-business, is known to most local executives in Cotabato, a component-province of Region 12.

Floresta is now detained, undergoing procedural interrogation. He had told reporters that he does not own the firearms and explosives that policemen found in his residence in Barangay Bulakanon.

Photo shows one of the two policemen wounded in a gunfight with the two bodyguards of Floresta, now undergoing medication in a hospital in Kidapawan City. (August 14, 2025, Makilala, Cotabato Region 12)