Reward offered for info on Malabon councilor’s killers

A photo posted on his Facebook account showed Mañalac (center) attending a forum on Pineapple Road in Potrero, Malabon City, shortly before he was killed. FROM TIGER MAÑALAC’S FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

Malabon Mayor Antolin Oreta III has offered a P200,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the men behind the killing of one of the city’s incumbent councilors on Saturday afternoon.

Merlin “Tiger” Mañalac, 45, was shot in the head by two men on a motorcycle outside his house in Barangay Tinajeros at 3:50 p.m., according to SPO4 Ferdinand Espiritu, chief of the Malabon police station investigation unit.

READ: Malabon councilor shot dead

The victim was about to get into his vehicle on his way to a meeting with Oreta when he was killed, Espiritu said. The gunmen and two others who served as lookouts escaped afterward.

According to Senior Supt. Severino Abad Jr., Malabon police chief, they were initially looking at politics as the motive.

Abad said Mañalac did not have any bodyguard at the time he was shot. His family told investigators that he had not received any death threats before he was gunned down.

Espiritu, however, told the Inquirer that the councilor was the third member of his family to be killed. His elder brothers, Marlon, a barangay councilor and Melvin, a policeman, were also murdered.

Mañalac—one of the sons of former city councilor and Malabon police chief Alfonso “Boyong” Mañalac whose life was made into a movie starring Eddie Garcia—was rushed to the Manila Central University Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival, Espiritu said.

Mañalac was running for reelection under Oreta’s Pusong Malabon Team which is allied with the ruling Liberal Party. In 2009, he took over his father’s council seat when the latter died of cardiac arrest. At that time, he was the older Mañalac’s chief of staff.

In 2010, he ran for the city council but ended up in seventh place. However, when one of the councilors died that same year in an accident, Oreta appointed him as the replacement.