Mayor charged with policeman’s slay

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna—Mayor Eulalio Alilio of Lemery, Batangas and two other unidentified suspects were charged with murder for the ambush-slay in July of a ranking police official, police on Friday said.

The police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Calabarzon, under Senior Supt. Edwin Nemenzo, filed the murder charges at the Department of Justice in Manila on Monday on behalf of a civilian complainant, according to Insp. Rizaldi Garcia of the investigation branch of CIDG–Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon).

The name of the private complainant was being withheld for security reasons, Garcia said.

Garcia said Alilio and his co-accused were charged based on the statement of a witness that the L-300 van used in the ambush of Supt. Rodney Ramirez in July belonged to Alilio.

He said police investigation showed that Alilio acquired the vehicle in 2009 and it was often seen in Lemery being used by people connected to the local official.

Ramirez, 42, and a resident of Lemery, was ambushed and killed on July 12. He was biking for his morning exercise in the adjacent town of Taal when a group of at least six men on board a Mitsubishi L-300 van open fired at him.

The suspects abandoned the vehicle, which authorities recovered in the vicinity of the crime and later found to be owned by Alilio.

On July 23, two men and a woman tagged in the murder of Ramirez were killed in a clash with police. The three, all on board a motorcycle, were killed following a short chase and a gunfight with police after they sped through a checkpoint on Diokno Highway in Barangay Mahayahay, Lemery.

Ramirez was formerly the chief of the Batangas Police Provincial Office (BPPO) intelligence branch and was assigned to the Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit of the BPPO at the time of his death.

The source said Ramirez’s relatives in Lemery were allegedly receiving threats from the mayor.

Alilio, in a phone interview on Friday, denied involvement in the murder of Ramirez and in the illegal drug trade.

He said he has yet to receive a copy of the complaint against him but said he “was expecting” it.