Slain mayor uneasy with public display of firearms

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya—Slain Mayor Carlito Pentecostes Jr. of Gonzaga town, Cagayan province, had always been uneasy with policemen, including his own security escorts, wielding high-powered firearms in public.

“He did not like police officers to be displaying their long firearms, especially when attending the Monday flag-raising ceremonies,” said Senior Superintendent Gregorio Lim, Cagayan provincial police director.

So that when a group of armed men stormed the Gonzaga municipal hall grounds on Monday, they were met without any form of resistance and easily immobilized four traffic policemen, seizing their pistols. One of the attackers peppered Pentecostes with bullets from a Baby Armalite rifle.

Lim made the remarks to explain the supposed lapse on the part of the police and Pentecostes’ close-in security. “Besides, the attack also happened very fast—about 20 seconds—which prevented anyone from reacting,” he said.

Pentecostes, 60, who was serving his second term, was killed by still unidentified men believed to be communist rebels as he was about to address officials and employees after the flag-raising ceremony in front of the municipal hall.

Lim declined to provide details on the specific leads that investigators had been tracing on the possible motive for the attack.

Hours after the shooting, police recovered three vehicles which the armed men, said to number 30, commandeered to escape. A six-wheel Isuzu Elf truck, the police station’s L200 pickup truck and a multicab were found abandoned along a dirt road in Barangay (village) Isca, 4 kilometers from the town center.

A fourth vehicle, a van that the attackers used, remained missing. The L200 patrol car was burned, while the multicab ran out of fuel, Lim said.

Investigators are looking into the value of leaflets found scattered at the town center following the ambush, in what the police believed could link the New People’s Army to the killing.

It read in Ilocano: “Justice for all, punish the brains of illegal mining operations by foreigners in Cagayan.

“This is just one of the leads, but we cannot yet categorically blame the NPA, unless they eventually own up to the atrocity,” Lim said.

Pentecostes’ family members, however, doubted that the murder was the work of the rebels, which, they said, had opposed black sand mining operations in the town. With a report from Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon