Abra rep: Let police probe ex-vice governor's murder

BANGUED, Abra – Rep. Joseph Bernos has urged his constituents not to jump to conclusions on who killed former Abra Vice Gov. Rolando Somera  who was slain by assassins in Marikina morning of June 17.

Somera was reportedly appointed to the National Tobacco Administration before he was killed prompting gossip the killing may be related to his upcoming position.

 “Let us wait for the result of the police investigation,” Bernos said.

He added jumping to conclusion that “politics of old mired with violence” is behind the killing will not help the province.

 Somera is said to have been picked to replace NTA Director Erasto Castaneda, who died in April.

Flanked by two aides, Somera had just stepped out of the San Roque cockpit arena in Barangay San Roque around 1:15 a.m. and was walking toward his vehicle when his killer shot him at close range with a pistol.

 The former vice governor was shot three times in the back and twice in the chest. He died on the spot.

 Aides Reynaldo de Luna, 46, and Wilfredo Apalisoc, 59, were hit by stray bullets and brought to different hospitals.

 Police have ruled out robbery in the killing as no valuables were reported taken from the former vice governor.

 Recovered from the crime scene were five .45-cal shells.

 Rep. Bernos, admitted that he and Somera were political rivals, but pointed out that the murder was done outside Abra to dispel politics as an angle in the crime. 

 He said that Abra, which has been trying to move away from its old image as “Cordillera’s Killing Fields”, will only suffer in the end if murders and incidents are attributed to political rivalries, Bernos said.

 “We’ve also been a victim of such, so it will not help to conclude unto things,” the congressman, whose older brother was killed while town mayor of La Paz in the 1990s, said.

 He said the last elections had not been marred by violence and deaths like in years past.

Somera’s political career ran for almost three decades.

He was also a former provincial board member and then mayor of Pilar town for nine months.

 He served as Abra vice governor from 2010 to 2013.

 He ran for Congress in 2013 but lost, and again for vice governor in 2016 under the Nacionalista Party.