Cagayan solon’s aide faces raps for peer's slay

By Charlie Lagasca

TUGUEGARAO CITY -- – Murder charges are being readied against an aide of Cagayan third district Rep. Randolph Ting for the Dec. 10 slay of a colleague in this city, Cagayan’s capital.

Supt. Pedro Martires, city police director, identified the suspect as Victorino Mabatan, 50, of this city’s Buntun village, whom authorities held for the shooting to death of Michael Panaligan, 36 that night.

The suspect and the victim, were both aides of Ting, had a personal grudge over the latter’s reportedly having a relationship with the former’s daughter.

“A murder case is now set for filing before the local prosecutor’s office,” Martires said.

According to investigations, Martires said the victim was driving his motorcycle when he was waylaid by the suspect along the boundary of the city’s barangays Buntun and Cataggaman, hitting the former on the right chest with a single Cal.38 bullet.

Panaligan was pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Catholic Church-run Saint Paul Hospital due to the gunshot wound.

“The suspect seemed to have been waiting for the victim to pass by,” Martires said.

The suspect was reportedly harboring ill feelings against the victim for having an alleged relationship with his daughter although the latter was already married.

Reports said the suspect’s daughter, with whom Panaligan was allegedly having an affair, even saw him being gunned down by her father.

The incident came at a time while a gun ban was imposed throughout Cagayan following the failed slay on Ting’s father, Mayor Delfin Ting in front of the family-owned Hotel Delfino along the city’s downtown on Nov. 15.