Ex-Ilocos Norte mayor wanted for murder, nabbed in Laguna

Former Dingras mayor Marynette Gamboa is escorted to a vehicle by police intelligence operatives following her arrest at a resort in Calamba, Laguna yesterday. Photo courtesy of the National Capital Region Police Office.

By Emmanuel Tupas

DINGRAS, Ilocos Norte -- After eluding authorities for more than a year, former mayor Marynette Gamboa of this town, was arrested in Calamba City in Laguna Sunday, Oct. 1.
    Gamboa was apprehended by intelligence operatives of the National Capital Region Police Office at a resort in Barangay Real at around 10:50 a.m., NCRPO director Brig. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. said in a report.
    She was brought to the office of the NCRPO regional special operations group for documentation.
    Gamboa is the alleged mastermind in the killing of Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative president Lorenzo Rey Ruiz in 2009.
    In June 2019, Gamboa was arrested at her condominium unit in Quezon City, but released from the Batac City jail after two weeks.

    This was after Regional Trial Court Branch 17 Judge Felix Salvador lifted the arrest warrant, citing Gamboa’s pending motion for reconsideration before the Office of the President.

    The court issued another arrest warrant in July last year after her appeal was rejected.

    Nartatez said Gamboa was also tagged in the ambush of Dingras mayor-elect Jeffrey Saguid and Sangguniang Panlalawigan board member Robert Castro in December 2009.

    Gamboa was unseated in 2011 after the Commission on Elections ruled on her disqualification in the May 2010 polls.

    She ran, but lost as representative of the second district of Ilocos Norte in the May 2019 elections.