P.5-million reward up vs P'sinan mayor's killers

By Jennelyn Mondejar

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – The Pangasinan Mayors’ League and Gov. Amado Espino Jr. have put up a P500,000 reward for the arrest of the killers of Agno Mayor Arthur Cabantac. Binalonan Mayor Ramon Guico Jr., president of PML and the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, told newsmen the mayors agreed on this during their meeting last Monday.

The league will provide P250,000, and Espino, P250,000.

Senior Supt. Isagani Nerez, provincial police director, said they have placed a policeman under custody as one of the suspects in Cabantac’s gun-slay Aug. 2 in Poblacion East, Agno town.

The policeman, whom Nerez requested not to be named yet, was formerly assigned in Agno but was transferred to San Quintin town after he allegedly had differences with the slain mayor.

Nerez said the policeman was relieved from his post and would undergo paraffin and ballistic tests and a lie detector test.

He said there was no direct evidence yet against the policeman. “We are still giving him the benefit of the doubt,” he said.

Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation of Investigation were working with the task force created by Nerez to probe the case.

Nerez said they were eyeing politics as motive but this will be dependent on evidence the task force could gather.

Cabantac’s wife Adevilenia said she was thankful to the police, NBI and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group for their efforts in solving the case.

On Aug. 4, Espino, in his State of the Province Address, said he was waging an all-out war against guns-for-hire in the province, including those hiring their services.

Espino said he was saddened that Pangasinan, which has been enjoying stable peace and order, is now hounded by the recent killings of councilors and Cabantac.

Meanwhile, Ms Cabantac said she decided to bring her husband’s remains to their residence in Quezon City and bury him later at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina.

She said this is her way of having peace of mind and lessen her family’s grief.

“Here, we are so much bothered,” she said. “I will miss his caring and loving ways to us, his family.” She said she told Agno folk, “Pinahiram ko lang siya sa inyo. Sana ibinalik ninyo siya sa amin ng buo at buhay (I only lent him to you. You should have returned him to us whole and alive).”

Mrs. Cabantac said her husband traded his good life and job in Metro Manila in exchange for serving his hometown. His job at the National Housing Authority as National Capital Region director and his assignment in the Visayas made him work with some politicians who inspired him to enter the political arena, she said.

Mrs. Cabantac works for the NHA and lives with their children in Quezon City. Cabantac was gunned down while playing mahjong with some friends in a neighbor’s residence in Poblacion East last Saturday night of Aug. 2.

Cabantac was playing mahjong in the house of a certain Cecilia Bosa at the corner of Zamora and Jaina streets, about 150 meters from the mayor’s, when he was attacked. Nerez said the mayor had reportedly told his bodyguards to patrol outside Bosa’s house while he was playing mahjong. Nobody was wounded in the shooting.

Four empty M-16 shells were recovered outside Bosa’s house.

Probers were eyeing several motives behind Cabantac’s killing, including politics as he was allegedly at odds with some Sangguniang Bayan members, and personal grudge as he had aggressively carried out his programs and policies that earned him several critics.

Mrs. Cabantac said playing mahjong was her husband’s way of relaxing and it was unfortunate that it was only last weekend when he did not go home in Quezon City, which he used to do.

She said she and their four children, all college graduates, objected when he joined politics in 2004 as a mayoral bet but lost.

When he decided to run again in 2007 and won, Mrs. Cabantac said they agreed that it would be his last – just to fulfill his vision for Agno’s progress.