Village chief gunned down in Masbate

LEGAZPI CITY — A village chief was shot dead by still unknown gunman at dawn Friday in Barangay Cabangcalan, a remote village of the town of Placer in Masbate, a Philippine National Police (PNP) officer said today.

Killed was Jonathan Sullera, 56, the village chief of Cabangcalan, located about 20 kilometers from the town proper, according to Senior Inspector Maria Luisa Calubaquib, PNP Bicol spokesperson.

Sullera just got home around 2:30 a.m. and was parking his motorcycle in front of his house located along the national road of Purok (sub-village)3 of his village when he was approached by a lone gunman who fired at him at close range, said Calubaquib, quoting a report from the Masbate PNP.

She said Sullera’s wife told police investigators that she heard two gunshots and saw her husband fall on the ground with his motorcycle.

Calubaquib said the village chief sustained gunshot wounds at the lower back portion of his head that instantly killed him.

Calubaquib said the Commission on Elections (Comelec)-PNP Joint Security Control Center in the region was still validating if the killing was election-related.

Election hot spot

The PNP-Bicol has earlier identified Masbate as a potential election hot shot based on its previous record of election-related violence.

On January 10, at the start of the election period, the PNP in Bicol announced the deployment of two elite police battalions in Masbate, one from the regional public safety command and another one from the Police Special Action Force (SAF).

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The deployment of the two battalions numbering 1,600 policemen would ensure that politically related violence would not thrive during the campaign period for the May polls, the regional police office said.

The deployed policemen would man the reactivated Task Force Masbate headed by Police Senior Supt. Lito Pitallano, the concurrent deputy director for operations of PNP-Bicol, with Senior Inspector Art Gomez serving as task force spokesperson.

The TF Masbate was formed during the 2013 election to oversee the security operations in the province tagged by the military and police as a “hot spot” area due to intense political rivalries and the presence of political armed groups (PAGs) and communist rebels.

Masbate has consistently been an area of concern for the PNP because of the violent clashes among warring political clans, particularly during elections.

In the 2013 elections, Masbate had the most number of villages in Bicol placed under Comelec control, with 40 villages in 18 towns.

Police sources said there were at least six PAGs that operated in past elections but the number has now gone down to two armed groups, the Arizobal and Villaruel groups with 38 members.

The TF Masbate was also able to seize hundreds of loose firearms and encourage political candidates to surrender at least 200 high powered firearms in the run up to the elections in 2013.

This year, there were no reports yet of seized firearms in Masbate.

For the whole Bicol region, Calubaquib said that since January 10, the PNP has set up 202 Comelec checkpoints with 1,515 policemen manning the various checkpoints in the region. CDG

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