Pangasinan PAO chief slain

SAN CARLOS CITY, Pangasinan — Police are looking for assassins of the chief of the Public Attorney’s Office of the province who tailed him on his way back to the office and shot him in the back in Barangay San Cacaritan.

Supt. Noel Valle, city police chief, said investigators are doing all they can to identify and arrest the killers of lawyer Dante Untalan, 59, married and a resident of Malibong, Urbiztondo.

Vallo said Untalan was on board a tricycle from an out-of-the-office meeting when a white motorcycle carrying two men tailed him.

Witnesses told investigators one of the men on the motorcycle took aim at the tricycle’s passenger carriage and fired a series of shots that hit Untalan in the back.

With Untalan bloodied inside the tricycle, the white motorcycle made its getaway.

Concerned citizens rushed to his aid and took him to a hospital in the city where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Homicide probers lifted deformed slugs and bullet casings for a .45-caliber pistol, the only evidence they have linked to the killers.

With no suspects yet, investigators are trying to figure out whether or not the motive in the killing was either work-related or political, since Untalan and his wife, an incumbent barangay chairman, are supporters of a mayoral candidate in Urbiztondo.

Senior Supt. Percival G. Barba, Pangasinan Police Provincial Office director, said probers only have a rough description of the suspects since they were wearing helmets during the attack