Political rifts eyed in attack on Romblon mayor

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—Police are initially looking at politics as a motive in the gunfire attack on the municipal mayor of Cajidiocan town on Sibuyan Island in Romblon province and his two bodyguards on Monday afternoon.

Mayor Festo Galang Jr. was shot in the left hand (although another report said he was shot in the left arm). His police escort, Police Officer 1 Erick Espartinez, sustained gunshot wounds in the left and right shoulders, while his civilian bodyguard (identified in another report as the mayor’s driver), Jorge Rabino (identified as Rabimo in another report), was wounded on his left arm.

Without naming names, the Romblon police director, Senior Superintendent Leo Tumolva, said in a phone interview, that they would initially check the political angle as a motive in the ambush.

He said political rivalry in Cajidiocan flared up during and after the May 2010 elections when the town’s mayor for 15 years, Nicasio Ramos, lost to Galang.

In August 2010, the municipal social hall, which was a project of Ramos, was burned down, leaving P7 million worth of damage to government property. Supporters of the two politicians blamed each other for the fire.

Tumolva said the mayor was on his way home from the municipal hall, aboard a Toyota Fortuner when they were ambushed in Barangay (village) Cambajao at around 5 p.m.

He said the victims were rushed to a branch of the provincial hospital on the island and have been out of danger.

The police recovered empty shells of an M-16 rifle and a ski mask, which one of the suspects might have left at the scene when they escaped towards a mountainous village in the town, said Tumolva.

Authorities have not determined the number of gunmen and how they escaped as manhunt operations continued.