Maitum mayor dies of heart attack after ambush
GENERAL SANTOS CITY – Mayor George Perrett of Maitum, Sarangani died hours after he was ambushed by unidentified suspects on Friday night.
Perrett was onboard his vehicle when ambushed along the national highway particularly in Sitio (sub-village) Bugo, Barangay Malalag in Maitum around 10:30 p.m. Friday.
Superintendent Jomar Alexis Yap, Sarangani deputy provincial police director, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone that Perret, his wife, and secretary were on their way home after attending an activity at the municipal gymnasium when waylaid by the suspects.
“Mayor Perrett was the one driving when the ambush occurred. We recovered spent shells of caliber 5.56 and .45 at the crime scene just about two kilometers away from the town poblacion,” Yap said.
Yap added that the Mayor’s vehicle was riddled with bullets. Perrett reportedly sustained a single bullet wound in left thigh and was immediately rushed to a hospital here.
The mayor, who was suffering from a heart problem, succumbed to cardiac arrest around 3:30 a.m. Saturday.
The remains of the slain mayor was brought for autopsy at Taycham Funeral Home here.
He was a scion of an American teacher volunteer who was part of the so-called Thomasites, a group of about 500 American teachers sent by the US government on Aug. 21,1901.
The Thomasites came to the Philippines to establish a new public school system to teach basic education and to train Filipino teachers, with English as the medium of instruction.
In 1990, former mayor Exuperio Gaabocayan, Maitum OIC mayor from 1987 to 1998, was ambushed and killed.
This was followed by the assassination of mayor George Yabes in November 2006 right at the town’s poblacion.
He was succeeded by Vice Mayor Felix Reganit who was also gunned down while in Manila in 2006.
All the three previous killings involving Maitum top officials remain unsolved up to this time.
The killings had alarmed residents of the sleepy yet resource-rich Maitum town, about a two-hour travel from this southern port city.
“Our town is very rich in terms of resources but we have a serious peace and order problem. We hope and pray that these killings would be solved to once and for all give justice to the victims,” a resident who asked not to be named said.
Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao was saddened by the killing of Mayor Perrett, who ran under the his People’s Champ Movement (PCM) during the last 2013 election.
Pacquiao had asked the law enforcers to do everything to identify and arrest the suspects.
“We are saddened by this very unfortunate incident. I urged our law enforcers to expedite the investigation of the case and do everything to identify and arrest those responsible,” Pacquiao said.
Governor Steve Chiongbian-Solon vowed the provincial government would do everything to give justice to the victim.
Solon assured the public that the law enforcers were still on top of the situation and that they are doing everything to solve Perrett’s murder.
“We strongly condemn the killing of mayor George Perrett. The province’s top military and police officials would be holding a closed-door meeting today to discuss and plan out how to solve this killing,” Solon said. With a report from Julliane Love De Jesus, INQUIRER.net
