Abra town councilor, fisherman shot dead

BY FREDDIE LAZARO AND DEXTER SEE

CAMP JUAN VILLAMOR, Bangued, Abra – Police are still trying to establish identities of men who gunned down a newly elected Abra councilor when they ambushed him on a road at Sitio Campong, Barangay Langiben, Lagangilang town on June 12.

The victim, who was riding his XRM motorcycle, was on his way home when he was attacked.

Supt. Joseph Adnol, Cordillera regional police information officer identified the victim as Oswald Villamor, 43, independent candidate who topped the council race in Langilang in the May 14 elections.

His house is located in the compound of the Abra State Institute of Science and Technology in Lagangilang.

PO3 Anatilio Rivera, officer on case, said the shooting occurred at about 3 p.m. that day.

The victim was riding his XRM motorcycle and was speeding along the road at Campong, when he was shot several times by the assailant.

Despite his wounds, the victim was able to bring himself to the ASIST compound, where he collapsed.

A certain Gaygay Ayunon, a friend of the victim, brought him to Dr. Petronilo Searez Sr. Memorial Hospital but he died about an hour later.

The victim reportedly suffered multiple bullet wounds in the chest.

Adnol said firearms used in the incident were shotguns.

Adnol said investigators were looking into personal grudge as a possible motive. However, the political angle is not being discounted, he said.

“The victim was an independent candidate in the last election, and as such he did not support any specific candidate,” he said

Senior Supt. Alexander Pumecha, director of the Abra Provincial Police Office, said the ambush took place near the junction in Barangay Langiben.

Pumecha said investigators were looking into reports the killers were members of a private army of an unscrupulous politician.

In another incident in Barangay Bagalay in the town of Tayum , also in the province a 28-year-old fisherman was killed and his companion was seriously wounded when they were recently shot by unidentified gunmen for unknown reason at a riverbank in Bagalay.

Pumecha identified the dead victim as Judy Laureta Bartolazo, 28, married, fisherman.

The injured victim was identified by police authorities as Dominador Laureta Apolonar, 26, single, fisherman, of Calaba West, Bangued, Abra.

Police said the two victims were fishing at a river in Tayum when they were shot by unidentified men.

Pumecha said Bartolazo suffered multiple bullet wounds in the body that caused his instant death.

Apolonar suffered a bullet wound on his left food and was brought to the Abra Provincial Hospital .

Witnesses said the armed men immediately fled. Investigators said the weapon used by the assailants was a Cal. 56 as evidenced by several empty bullet shells found at the crime scene.

Violence still continued to hound Abra despite the presence of military and police forces assigned by the Commission on Elections in an effort to stop the “unsolved killings” the past several months in this conflict-rocked province.