Avid supporter of Ilocos mayor slain

By Jun Guiang

LAOAG CITY – A former police chief and avid supporter of Dingras (Ilocos Norte) Mayor Marynette Gamboa was gunned down in broad daylight Nov. 11 in Barangay Dancel of that town, lawmen said.

Chief Insp. Randolf Beniat, Dingras police chief, reported that the victim identified as Raymundo Castillo, Jr., a retired Senior Police Officer 4, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Dingras district hospital.

Castillo served as police chief of Dingras before he retired. He was also a former barangay captain.

Mayor Gamboa swiftly condemned the brutal killing of Castillo whom he described as director of her project Dream Farmers Cooperative.

Initial investigation showed the victim had just stopped near his son’s motor shop in downtown Dingras when two motorcycle-riding armed men approached his car and shot him twice at close range in full view of the public.

He suffered fatal wounds in the neck and left side of the body. He was armed with pistol but he failed to draw and fire his gun at the assailants, who fled on board their motorcycle.

Probers found two empty shells of caliber .45 bullets at the crime scene.

Investigators said they were looking into two angles, either politics or personal grudge as motive of the killing.