Police eye ‘persons of interest’ in slay of Lanao poll official

Lanao del Norte. INQUIRER FILES

TUBOD, LANAO DEL NORTE — Police investigators in Lanao del Norte have identified two “persons of interest” in the ambush on Monday of an election officer in Salvador town.

Colonel Roy Magsalay, Lanao del Norte police director, refused to divulge details about the two personalities and the circumstances that linked them to the killing of Mark Orlando Vallecer II.

Vallecer, acting election officer of Nunungan town, was driving alone in his car from Salvador, where he attended a conference among personnel of the Commission on Elections in Lanao del Norte, when waylaid by two men on board a motorcycle as he reached a bridge detour in Barangay Curva-Miagao at around 2 p.m.

Vallecer drove ahead of a convoy of vehicles carrying Comelec personnel.

Magsalay said they had asked for footage from nearby establishments that have CCTV cameras to help identify the two suspects who staged the attack.

READ: Comelec exec in Lanao del Norte dead in apparent poll-related violence

He added that the National Bureau of Investigation had helped in the probe and coordinated with the Salvador police on Tuesday.

Major Teodorico B. Gallego, Salvador police chief, said Vallecer, 51, was immediately brought to a hospital in Lala town but was pronounced dead. His remains were later brought to his family in Kauswagan, Cagayan de Oro City.

Gallego said the Comelec had not coordinated security arrangements for the Salvador gathering on Monday, held at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority training campus.

E”Had they coordinated with us that they would be having a conference, we could have provided a security assistance team,” Gallego lamented.

The Inquirer tried to reach out through text message to Joseph Hamilton Cuevas, Lanao del Norte Provincial Election Supervisor, but received no response. ions

Gallego disclosed that Vallecer suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the head. Probers recovered five fired cartridge cases and one fired slug of caliber .45 pistol from the vicinity of the incident.

Threat

Nunungan Mayor Marcos Mamay told the Inquirer that Vallecer had already received a threat against his life right after the conduct of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections last year but remained coy about it.

“The death threat against Vallecer was very imminent but sometimes the latter refused to have a security escort,” Mamay recalled.

Lawyer Merdovel Ylanan of the NBI said they also discovered photos of Vallecer in a social media post showing him with a gun slung on his shoulder while inside the office, which could indicate he, indeed, was already feeling the imminence of the danger.

On Tuesday, members of the Peace and Order Council, Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Council, and Provincial Development Council, which held a joint meeting in Tubod town, vehemently condemned the ambush of Vallecer.

Gov. Imelda Quibranza-Dimaporo urged the full force of the law to be put to bear to arrest the suspects and make them answer for the crime.

In a resolution, the three councils also requested that the Army be mobilized in the hunt for the suspects.