Media man’s killer falls

ISABELA PROVINCE—Police on Wednesday arrested a suspect in the 2011 murder of a Quirino newspaper columnist.

Senior Supt. Franklin Moises Mabanag, Isabela police director, said Joey Bautista, a native of Nueva Ecija, was arrested for the Oct. 7, 2011 murder of Johnson Pascual, who wrote for the defunct Prime News and Northeast Journal in Maddela, Quirino.

Bautista told reporters on Thursday that he was hired by an official in Alicia, Isabela, to kill Pascual, also a manager of the First Isabela Cooperative Bank (Ficobank) in Maddela, Quirino.

The contract price, he said, was P200,000.

Ysmael Atienza, head of the Isabela Anti-Crime Task Force, said Bautista’s arrest was a breakthrough that could lead them to the mastermind.

On Oct. 7 last year, Pascual was driving a van from Alicia toward Cauayan City when a motorcycle carrying two men sidled up to his vehicle to get into position for the attack.

Pascual died from bullet wounds in the head and body. Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon