Pangasinan town mayor shot dead

DAGUPAN CITY—Two armed men shot to death Urbiztondo town Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr, his police escort, and an electrician at 8:50 a.m. on Saturday (June 7)near an area where he was supposed to hold his 25th wedding anniversary on Sunday.

Urbiztondo town Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr. Photo from urbiztondopangasinan.gov.ph

The slain mayor was at the back of the town’s convention center building when armed men drove up in a vehicle and opened fire, police said. Balolong was inspecting the venue for his wedding anniversary, as well as the wedding of his son, Councilor Voltaire Balolong, that would have simultaneously taken place.

The gunmen alighted from a black Toyota Innova, and had calmly approached the mayor before they opened fire, according to a witness.

The witness said the slain mayor managed to scamper away but he was felled by another shot. One of the gunmen approached Balolong to shoot the mayor at point blank range.

Balolong Jr. and PO1 Eliseo Umanday were the apparent targets of the attack, but Edmund Meneses, a supermarket electrician, was caught in the barrage of the bullets.

The attack also injured Jose Vigilia, an employee of the CSI Supermarket, and Rogelio Esguerra, a taho (soy drink) vendor.

Balolong was immediately taken to the Elguira General Hospital in San Carlos City. But Dr. Samuel Elguira, hospital owner, said that Balolong was already dead when he arrived in the hospital at about 9:55 a.m.

“He had 27 gunshot wounds, in his chest and his back,” Elguira said in an interview at Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan here.

Senior Superintendent Sterling Raymund Blanco, provincial director, said investigators were already in the area.

Last year, Balolong’s home was subjected to a raid by the National Bureau of Investigation, from which they allegedly recovered unlicensed weapons that allowed them to arrest the mayor.

Balolong was also being investigated for his alleged part in the 2012 murder of a Lingayen town vice mayor and his wife. He was released on December 2013.

The murdered official was a member of the Liberal Party. With a report from Yolanda Sotelo

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