COTABATO CITY (April 13, 2026) — Local executives and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region are together guarding the seaports in Basilan to prevent the possible escape to the province of the two men who killed a Lebanese and his Filipino wife in Zamboanga City on Friday, April 10.
The slain couple, the Lebanese national Fahed Hamdan and his spouse, Anora, owned a printing press and an internet shop close to the intersection of the Cervantes and Pilar Streets in Zamboanga City in Region 9, not too distant from Basilan, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Brig. Gen. Edwin Quilates, director of the Police Regional Office 9, said on Sunday that their continuing hunt for both suspects is being assisted by intelligence units under Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, also based in Zamboanga City.
The Hamdans were shot with a pistol one after another by one of their two assailants inside their establishment. Hamdan’s wife died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack. Hamdan passed away in a hospital where he was brought by emergency responders for treatment.
Radio reports here on Sunday stated that Basilan Gov. Mujiv Hataman and his constituent-mayor, Roderick Furigay of Lamitan City and officials of the Basilan Provincial Police Office are cooperating in guarding the seaports in the province against possible entry from Zamboanga City of the two killers of the Hamdan couple.
Zamboanga City Mayor Mayor Khymer Adan Olaso had circulated screen grabbed photos of the two suspects from copies of footage obtained from the security cameras inside the business establishment of the victims and in stores outside.
Olaso had offered a P500,000 incentive for any information that could help the police locate the duo.
Hamdan was shown in the security camera trying to disarm the gunman who shot him and his wife with a pistol, but eventually fell, weakened by his gunshot wounds in the upper torso.
Hataman and Furigay have deployed personnel of the civil security units under their respective offices to the seaports in the cities of Isabela and Basilan to help plainclothes intelligence operatives of units of PRO-BAR in the province guard against any possible intrusion by the killers of the Hamdans from Zamboanga City.
“This is just a security measure. It is unlikely for the suspects to come and hide in Basilan but we are not taking chances. We are guarding against that. The local government unit of Lamitan and our provincial government, under our present governor, and the city government of Zamboanga are partners in peace and development initiatives,” Furigay said.
Hataman is chairman of the multi-sector Basilan Peace and Order Council, a known active supporter of the police and military’s peacekeeping missions in their province.
Photo shows the Lebanese national Hamdan and his wife, killed in Zamboanga City by two attackers, now both subject of a joint police-military manhunt. []