Ex-mayor slain
BULACAN -- A former mayor of Apalit, Pampanga, was shot and killed on Thursday by a lone gunman on a motorcycle in Calumpit, Bulacan, police said.
Tirso Lacanilao was driving his Mitsubishi Galant and was headed to Hagonoy town when the suspect, armed with a 9 mm pistol, shot him at about 2:20 p.m. in Barangay Poblacion in Calumpit.
Lacanilao died while being taken to the Santa Cruz Hospital in Calumpit. He suffered bullet wounds in different parts of the body. Carmela Reyes, Inquirer Central Luzon
Deranged man kills 5
LUCENA CITY -- At least five persons, including a four-month-old baby girl, were hacked to death in Barangay Malusak in Atimonan, Quezon late Thursday, police said yesterday.
Senior Supt. Fidel Posadas, Quezon police chief, identified the victims as Elizabeth dela Torre, 27, and her children Eliza, 3; Arvin, 5; Aizly, 4 months old; and Rose Marie San Juan, 12, niece of Elizabeth, all residents of Malusak.
Posadas said at around 10 p.m., the victims were walking home from the town fiesta carnival when the suspect, Mario Banal, blocked their way and without provocation hacked them with a bolo.
Police arrested the suspect in a follow-up operation.
Posadas said the suspect, a neighbor of the victims, is “mentally deranged.”
“He doesn’t want to talk. It’s hard to investigate,” Posadas said in a phone interview. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern LuzonBureau
Rizal remembered
DAPITAN CITY -- The city commemorated the departure of Dr. Jose Rizal here 112 years ago by holding a torch parade and program at the Rizal Shrine on July 31.
Councilor Apple Marie Agolong, chair of the city council’s committee on tourism, said members of the academe were in the festivities.
Rizal arrived here on July 17, 1892 and built a “historical paradise” in Barangay Talisay, a village in front of the bay.
Rizal built a house, a clinic, a school, a library, and a water system for agricultural production in the village.
Some of them still exist today. Richel Umel, Inquirer Mindanao
2 hurt in drug raid
TAGUM CITY -- Two persons were wounded when antidrug agents conducted a raid in a bid to capture a suspected drug pusher in a coastal village here Wednesday night, the police said yesterday.
Romel Carin and Leonardo Diabo suffered bullet wounds and were rushed to the Davao Regional Hospital here after they were shot by agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), according to Supt. Dario Gunabe, city police chief.
But Gunabe quoted PDEA agents from the Southern Mindanao regional office in Davao City as saying Carin and Diabo attacked one agent during a buy-bust operation in Purok 1 in Barangay Madaum at around 6:25 p.m. Frinston Lim, Inquirer Mindanao
Diarrhea downs 400
Over 400 residents of a resort town in Compostela Valley have been rushed to the town health center following an outbreak of diarrhea there since July 18, health and local officials said.
A state of calamity was declared in Maragusan town, some 90 km from here, on July 26 as the number of persons afflicted by the water-borne ailment continued to rise. Funds are badly needed to buy medicines and anti-diarrheal solutions for the victims, Mayor Cesar Colina said on Thursday. Frinston Lim, Inquirer Mindanao
