COTABATO CITY (Tuesday, September 2, 2025) — A 52-year-old father and his son were killed in a gunfight with policemen who had procured from them P1.6 million worth of shabu in an entrapment operation on Monday, September 1, in Barangay Bongued in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte that turned awry.

Local executives and ranking members of the multi-sector Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Peace and Order Council told reporters on Tuesday, September 2, that Mandangan Noden and his 29-year-old son, Iverson Noden, both died instantly from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the shootout.

Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, announced on Tuesday that personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, led by their chief, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, and operatives from different units of PRO-BAR had arrested the 18-year-old son of Noden, Daboy Noden, who yielded peacefully after his father and older brother got killed in the shootout.

De Guzman and the mayor of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Abdulmain Abas, had separately said that policemen were forced to neutralize the Nodens when they pulled out assault rifles and opened fire when they sensed that they had sold 240 grams of shabu to anti-narcotics operatives during a tradeoff in Sitio Ampatuan in Barangay Bongued.

De Guzman and Col. Eleuterio Ricardo, director of the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office, separately told reporters that they are grateful to the newcomer Abas and Vice Mayor Bobsteel Sinsuat, both elected to office just last May 12, for having supported the entrapment operation in Barangay Bongued.

Besides the P1.6 million worth shabu, policemen had also confiscated the M16 and M14 assault rifles of the slain Noden and his son, whose cadavers were immediately buried by relatives.