Candidate for councilor seized, shot dead in Abra

BAAY-LICUAN, Abra -- A candidate for the Sangguniang Bayan here was allegedly shot dead Tuesday by New People’s Army guerillas for refusing to pay “permit to campaign fees.”

Crispin Maguelang was attending a wedding in Barangay Dominglay when the rebels seized and brought him to the house of a certain Estimo Balug in Barangay Bayabas in Malibcong town, where he was shot, according to a report received by Chief Supt. Ulysses Abellera, Cordillera police director.

Maguelang was running under the National Unity Party.

La Paz Mayor Joseph Bernos, who is running for Abra’s lone congressional seat, condemned the killing. “We ask for justice,” he said.

In December, Bernos’ secretary, Noel Belena, was gunned down while driving home on his motorcycle.

Senior Supt. Tony Bartolome, provincial director said he has ordered an investigation to find out the veracity of the information that members of the NPA, as told by witnesses, were responsible in the killing of  Maguelang in Barangay Bayabas in the neighboring town of Malibcong.

Malibcong is an NPA infested locale.

Information has it that the victim went to the said place around 1: 45 in the afternoon of Tuesday for still unknown reasons.

“We still do not know whether this has something to do with politics or whether the motive is personal. I have ordered our personnel to find out the information that NPAs were the ones who killed him,” Bartolome said.

Police are doing a follow up investigation on the incident.