7 killed in Cavite election day massacre

Police officers conduct their final preparations like putting barricades around the provincial capitol of the Comelec control province of Abra Sunday. (Leoncio Balbin, Jr- Philippine Daily Inquirer- Northern Luzon Bureau

ROSARIO, Cavite—Barely six hours before polling precincts opened on Monday, seven supporters of Mayor Jose Ricafrente Jr., were stopped on a dimly lit road by an armed group and shot dead at close range, execution style, the police said.

Ricafrente was certain the attack on his supporters was election-related. The police, however, would not label it as such, pending an investigation.

Ricafrente said the victims, mostly traders who had relocated here from Mindanao since the 1990s, were on a convoy of a Mitsubishi Adventure and two motorcycles when they were attacked by armed men along a dimly lit village road in Wawa III at 12 a.m. He said the victims died from bullet wounds in their heads.

Senior Supt. Eliseo Cruz, Cavite police director, said initial investigation showed that the victims could have been forced to alight from their vehicles.

“Based on our investigation, a shot could have been fired first, prompting [the victims’ convoy] to stop. They were then forced to get off their vehicles and were shot on the road,” Cruz said.

Police identified the victims as Amron Sharief, Fabil Magandia and Ramon Tuazon, and Omair, Ebrahim, Farhan and Rakiin, all surnamed Imam. Their companion, Fatar Mampon, was wounded.

Cruz said no one witnessed the attack, leaving Mampon as the only person who could provide details of the attack.

“Policemen, when they arrived at the crime scene, even thought Mampon was dead,

only to realize later that he was still breathing,” he added.

Ricafrente said the victims, at the time of the attack, were “doing the rounds to preempt… vote-buying.” He, however, did not elaborate.

Ricafrente, who is on his third and final term as mayor, is running for vice mayor while his son, Voltaire, is running for mayor.

The Ricafrentes are members of the Liberal Party and are up against Renato Abutan and Jose Rozel Hernandez of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

He said the victims belonged to a family of traders, who owned jewelry stalls in Metro Manila, but were registered voters in this town.

Masbate

In Masbate province, a supporter of a mayoral candidate in Dimasalang town was shot and wounded by four men on Sunday night, police said.

The military has intensified its security monitoring in the town after the victim, Winifredo Apalla, 50, a fisherman and resident of Barangay Balocawe, was identified as a supporter of mayoral candidate Edgar de Lara, said Lt. Col. Angelo Guzman, spokesperson of the military’s Southern Luzon Command.

Residents have also reported the presence of armed men roaming in the town since Sunday night.

Also in Masbate, police in Cawayan town belied a report about a bomb explosion that supposedly killed a candidate there on Monday.

In a text message, Insp. Jerry Garces, Cawayan deputy police chief, said no such incident happened in Barangay Divisoria, as reports on social media had claimed.

He said Divisoria village chair Ferdinand Ygote certified that no explosion happened in his community.

Chief Insp. Arthur Gomez, spokesperson of the Special Task Force Masbate, said the report might have been confused with the four blasts that happened in Barangay Divisoria in Cataingan town, also in Masbate, on May 4. With a report from Shiena Barrameda, Inquirer Southern Luzon