Hunt for bet tagged in Capiz slay spreads to other provinces

ILOILO CITY—Police have widened their manhunt against a fugitive mayoral candidate tagged as the mastermind in last year’s killing of a municipal vice mayor in Capiz.

Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr., Western Visayas police director, said police units in Central and Eastern Visayas and the Mimaropa region (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan) have been alerted on the possible flight to these areas of  engineer Leodegario Labao Jr.

“Our manhunt operations are continuing and we have broadened our area of search in the neighboring regions,” Cruz told the Inquirer.

Police have identified Labao as the mastermind in the May 4, 2012 killing of Vice Mayor Abel Martinez of Mambusao town.

The Capiz Regional Trial Court Branch 21 on April 10 issued a warrant for Labao’s arrest for murder.

Martinez, 79, died, from five bullet wounds after he was repeatedly shot by a lone gunman outside his house in Barangay (village) Poblacion Proper, Mambusao, about 45 kilometers southeast of the capital Roxas City.

Labao, a contractor and owner of Kirskat Venture construction firm, is the mayoral candidate in Mambusao of the National Unity Party, which is allied with the United Nationalist Alliance.

Martinez was being eyed as the mayoral candidate of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) when he was killed. His daughter Sharon Martinez-Martelino is running under the LP against Labao.

Cruz said police are also monitoring hospitals and other health care institutions in these areas after Labao escaped arrest at the St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo in Iloilo City on April 14.

Labao eluded policemen who came to arrest him at the hospital where he was confined from April 10 after he was admitted of chest pains, according to Cruz.

Cruz said they would also file charges for obstruction of justice against four persons seen in security camera footages helping Labao leave the hospital on a vehicle.

“One of those who helped him was a candidate in Capiz and a businesswoman,” Cruz said.

He declined to identify them pending the filing of a complaint this week.