Noel Miralles (Photo from the Mabini LGU)
Published: 10:40 a.m., June 12, 2018 | Updated: 11:23 p.m., June 12, 2018
The election officer of Mabini town in Batangas province was shot and killed by two men on a motorcycle as he was waiting for a ride home to Batangas City on Monday night.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) employees on Tuesday condemned the murder of Noel Miralles, 53, with an official calling it a “dastardly act.”
In Manila, Mac Ramirez, president of Comelec Employees Union (Comelec-EU), said the poll body’s employees would wear black on Wednesday to signify their collective cry for justice and protest over the murder of Miralles and other victims of senseless killings in the country.
“The Comelec-EU calls on the authorities to spare no effort in bringing the perpetrators of this cowardly act to justice,” said Ramirez in a statement.
“The killing of (Miralles) highlights the prevailing culture of impunity in the country at the moment,” he said, noting that the murder comes on the heels of the recent killings of lawyer Madonna Joy Ednaco-Tanyag, assistant special prosecutor at the Office of the Ombudsman, and Catholic priest Richmond Nilo in Nueva Ecija.
“The killings must stop and the culture of impunity must end. We demand no less than justice,” he said.
Supt. Chitadel Gaoiran, spokesperson for the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) police, said Miralles was in front of a shopping mall in Bauan town when he was attacked at 6 p.m. Monday. Miralles died while being taken to Bauan General Hospital.
Gaoiran said the gunmen fled toward San Pascual town.
Work-related
Juanito Icaro, Comelec director in Calabarzon, said Miralles was the first election officer killed in the region in recent years.
“We’re facing a blank wall. It was such a dastardly act,” Icaro said in a telephone interview.
He said they did not know of any threat against Miralles even during the recent barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
Mabini, in fact, was one of the “most peaceful” during the elections, Icaro said.
He said Miralles, who had been with the Comelec for more than 20 years and had been assigned to different towns and cities in Batangas, including Bauan, was “a very simple man.”
“Napakabait na tao (He was such a good person),” said Batangas election officer Gloria Petallo, who led her colleagues in calling for justice.
Senior Supt. Edwin Quilates, Batangas police director, said the killing was “definitely work-related.”
“We also have a person of interest but we cannot discuss it right now as follow-up (operations) continue,” he said.