Batangas vice mayor dies in hospital days after shooting

MANILA, Philippines— After three days of fighting for his life in a Pasay hospital, Talisay, Batangas Vice Mayor Florencio Manimtim Jr., succumbed early Monday to multiple gunshot wounds inflicted on him by a hired gun.

Pasay City police chief Senior Superintendent Melchor Reyes said Manimtim was pronounced dead at around 3:22 a.m. Monday by doctors at the San Juan de Dios Hospital.

Reyes said investigators of the Pasay City police tried to get a statement from Manimtim on Sunday afternoon but they were informed that the vice mayor was in the intensive care unit and was in an unstable condition.

But at around 4:30 a.m. Monday, the police received a phone call from the hospital informing investigators that the Batangas official had died.

On Thursday last week, Manimtim waiting for his car in front of the SM Hypermart at the Mall of Asia on the corner of  Sunset Avenue and Harbour Drive in Pasay City when a gunman came up from behind and repeatedly shot the vice mayor with a .45 cal. pistol..

The assailant then quickly fled on a motorcycle driven by a cohort.