By Freddie Lazaro, Mar T. Supnad, George Trillo, Reuben John Rivera
Five persons were killed in northern Luzon this week in poll related incidents bringing to 11 the total number of slain victims the past three weeks in regions 1, 2, 3 including the Cordillera.
Latest was in Isabela wherein a former barangay chairman and two other persons were killed while a chief tanod was wounded in a shooting incident along a road in Barangay Bisag of the coastal island town of Palanan in the province Monday night.
Senior Insp. Charlemagne Tabije, chief of the Palanan town’s police station, identified the slain victims as Murad Batwa Mudar, a Maranao; former barangay chairman Froilan Usbal and one Abdani Bashir. All were known supporters of incumbent Palanan Mayor Angelo Bernardo.
Tabije identified the wounded victim as Gerry Dela Pena, the chief tanod of Barangay Bisag, Palanan town. Dela Pena sustained bullet wounds on his left arm and left leg and was airlifted to a hospital in Isabela.
Investigation disclosed the shooting happened at about 10 p.m. that night. According to Barangay Bisag chairman Rogel Bernardo, he and his kagawad with six members of his barangay tanod were on their way to conduct foot patrol to Sitio Macasebo of Barangay Bisag when they met the group of Murad.
After a short conversation, Bernardo and his men continued their foot patrol. But when they reached the end of the road, they heard successive gunshots. Bernardo and his men immediately rushed to the scene but the assailants quickly fled before they could confront them.
Three of the victims sustained multiple bullet wounds and died on the spot.
In Pangasinan, tension gripped Dagupan City and various groups due to poll violence in the city and other parts of the province prompting Pangasinenses to appeal to the Commission on Elections Wednesday to place Dagupan City under its control.
The call for Comelec control was aired following the reported mauling incident of several campaign supporters of former mayor Benjamin Lim by armed bodyguards of Mayor Alipio Fernandez, Jr ‘s son, Alvin, who allegedly barged into a barangay rally staged by Lim’s camp.
Lim’s son, Brian, a candidate for city councilor, and former councilor Nick Aquino, along with five other supporters, were reportedly pistol-whipped, kicked and forced to lie face down on the pavement.
They suffered contusions in different parts of the body, a medical test by doctors of the Regional Medical Center here showed.
According to witnesses, the young Fernandez who helps his father run City Hall as administrator, even dared Lim’s group to a firefight.
“Patayan na,” the young Fernandez was quoted by the witnesses as shouting.
The commotion sent the crowd in the rally to panic when one of the armed men in black bonnet, with his Armalite rifle poked on the back of Lim and shouted, “Papatayin kita, eh.”
The incident happened at 4 p.m. Tuesday, a stone’s throw from a police detachment in Barangay Bolosan here where a SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team of the Dagupan City police force was posted.
“They (members of the SWAT team) just watched us being manhandled,” Lim later complained at the police headquarters where he had the incident blottered.
In urging the poll body to act fast on their petition for Comelec control, the anti-violence groups warned of possible fierce clashes between the two rival camps if no immediate intervention is made by authorities.
“We demand a quick solution. We want the elections to be peaceful,” Benjamin Lim who is on a political comeback to retake the mayorship, said in an interview by a local radio station.
“This is the first time in Dagupan politics that armed men stormed a political rally,” Lim said, even as he expressed disbelief that his rival, incumbent Mayor Al Fernandez would resort to such tactics.
“I know him (Mayor Fernandez) to be civil and cool-tempered, but he should advice his son,” Lim said.
Owing to the incident, the groups also demanded the immediate relief of Sr. Supt. Mariano Luis Versoza, Dagupan City police chief, and members of the SWAT team who “did nothing to stop the commotion.”
Interviewed on television and radio, Versoza said: “Even if we set up more checkpoints, there’s no guarantee that armed groups can be intercepted.”
In Pampanga, a retired provincial health officer of Pampanga was shot dead in Barangay Sta. Monica, Lubao town Tuesday night and probers were checking if politics had something to do with the killing.
Senior Supt. Manuel Gaerlan, provincial police director, said the victim, Dr. Ernesto Santos, 65, sustained a gunshot wound in the chest.
Guagua municipal administrator Isaac Panganiban Jr. said Santos was an identified supporter of Guagua mayoral candidate Rudy Reyes of the Nationalist People’s Coalition.
This town, within the second district where President Arroyo is running for Congress, in now under the “watch list” of the Commission on Elections together with the towns of Apalit, Mexico, San Simon, Mabalacat, Arayat, Porac, and Magalang.
In La Union, a Commission on Elections employee was stabbed dead night of May 2 by a group of men who attacked him on the road to his cousin’s house in Barangay Baluarte, Agoo town.
Chief Insp. Joel Quintero, chief of police, identified the victim as one Butch Redel F. Carera, 23, a casual employee of the Comelec office in Burgos, La Union, and resident of Barangay Baluarte.
Quintero said the attack was carried out by knife-wielding suspects who came out of nowhere while the victim was passing by a dimly-lit part of the road around 7:15 p.m.
The attack seemed to have been planned as Carera’s killers made a quick getaway as soon as they saw him bloodied and helpless on the pavement.
Concerned passersby picked the victim up and took him to the Agoo Medical Center where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
He bore numerous stab wounds in the body, most of them in the chest, Quintero said.
Probers theorized the Comelec employee might have been a victim of mistaken identity as the assailants were obviously waiting for someone to kill without hesitation.
Another report said Carera was reportedly on his way home from the Comelec office around 10 p.m. when he was accosted by a man who was carrying a knife.
According to the victim’s story shortly before he died, the suspect did not demand anything nor threatened him.
The suspect suddenly stabbed the victim twice in the chest, then ran away. Local residents found the victim struggling on the street and rushed him to the nearest hospital.
The victim received two stabs on his left chest, puncturing one side of the victim’s heart, which resulted to complications and eventually death, minutes after he was brought into the hospital.
Police officers said the incident may not have been election-related violence, but residents said they believe otherwise.
One 40 year old store owner, who requested anonymity and resides near the area where the incident happened, said the incident may have been related to the election. “Such crimes usually happen during the elections”, she said. “A lot of people pass through these streets at night, but of all people to be killed, it had to be a Comelec employee.”
The police are now searching for the suspect, whom they believe resides near the area.
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