Pamplona vice mayor shot dead in Cagayan

TUGUEGARAO CITY – Motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead the 39-year-old vice mayor of Pamplona town in northern Cagayan on Friday night.

Vice Mayor Aaron Sampaga was shot several times at 11:20 p.m. by the gunmen who drove through a makeshift road to access the compound of the official’s close friend, Rodolfo Guzman, during a gathering at Masi village, said Senior Insp. Francis Pattad, Pamplona town police chief.

No one else was hurt in the attack.

The gunmen were armed with an M-16 Armalite rifle and a Cal. 45 handgun. They wore black jackets with blue shirts and caps.

“We are still facing a blank wall as to the motive,” Pattad said.

Sampaga was a three-term Pamplona mayor before he ran and won as vice mayor on May 9.

His sister, Arnie Angelica Sampaga, succeeded him, besting former vice mayor Edwin Ifurung who had pursued murder charges against Sampaga in 2014.

Ifurung had implicated Sampaga in the July 3, 2014 murder of his brother Edmund Ifurung at their family-owned gasoline station in Bidduang village.