NCRPO: Ex-Ilocos Norte town mayor wanted for murder arrested in Laguna

FILE PHOTO: Mugshot of former Dingras, Ilocos Norte Mayor Marynette Gamboa. Photo from the Quezon Police District – Public Information Office

MANILA, Philippines — Law enforcers arrested on Saturday a former mayor of an Ilocos Norte town, who is wanted for the 2009 killing of Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative President Lorenzo Rey Ruiz.

The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) said Sunday its Regional Special Operations Group nabbed ex-Dingras mayor Marynette Gamboa at 10:30 on September 30 inside a resort in Calamba City, following days of intelligence operations.

Gamboa’s arrest was carried out through an arrest warrant issued by Presiding Judge Felix Gabrial Salvador of Batac City Regional Trial Court Branch 17 in  July 2022.

The warrant did not recommend bail for the accused who was arrested over the weekend in Laguna.

The NCRPO said Gamboa is also tagged as the alleged mastermind in the December 2009 ambush of Dingras mayor-elect Jeffrey Saguid, and Sangguniang Panlalawigan Board Member Robert Castro.

In a report, NCRPO Director Brig. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. disclosed Gamboa was first arrested in May 2019 but released two weeks after as Salvador lifted the arrest warrant issued against her as she filed a motion for reconsideration of her case.

READ: Ex-Ilocos town mayor tagged in murder of coop exec nabbed in QC

But her motion was rejected three years later in 2022, according to the NCRPO chief, and so Judge Salvador issued another warrant for her arrest.

From Laguna, Nartatez said the former mayor is placed under the custody of the NCRPO-Regional Special Operations Group.

READ: Judge cuts short ex-mayor’s hospital arrest, orders her transfer to jail

(This is the corrected version of an earlier report erroneously stating that the former mayor is behind the killing of three persons. Two of the victims are alive.)

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