Multi-awarded police intelligence agent killed in General Santos ambush

COTABATO CITY — A police intelligence agent based in Carmen, Cotabato province, credited for his accomplishments in locating members of local terrorist groups wanted in courts for heinous crimes, died in an ambush in General Santos City at about dusk Sunday.

The slain Corporal Ricky Mendoza Gomez, who belonged to the Carmen municipal police in Cotabato, was in General Santos City for a training on advanced police intelligence networking proficiency, handled by instructors from the Police Regional Office 12.

An initial report on Monday from the office of PRO-12 director Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg in Barangay Tambler in General Santos City stated that Gomez was riding a motorcycle when he was shot in the head and upper torso with 5.56 M16 assault rifles by still unidentified men as he traversed through a busy stretch of a highway in Barangay Sinawal, killing him on the spot.

Gomez served as a police intelligence operative in Pikit town, Cotabato prior to his assignment in Carmen, also in the same province. More than 60 people had been killed gun attacks in Pikit since 2021. Some perpetrators, positively identified by investigators and Gomez, are now subject of police manhunts. 

Local executives and police officers in the province told reporters that Gomez had remarkable accomplishments and even got citations for his roles in tracing whereabouts of wanted persons and members of the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters implicated in deadly terror attacks and extortion.

Macaraeg said he has directed their intelligence units in Cotabato province and in General Santos City to cooperate with police investigators who are working to identify killers of Gomez for prosecution.