Eriguel kin to killers: This is your downfall

AGOO, La Union — “This is the hardest goodbye that we will ever have to say,” Mayor Stefanie Ann Eriguel said on Saturday when she buried her father, former La Union Rep. Eufranio Eriguel, at a public cemetery here.

“You did not deserve to die this way in the hands of heartless, selfish, cruel people who want only to instill fear in our people,” she said during funeral Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity here.

“It was an act of cowardice,” she said. “But this is their greatest mistake and this will be their downfall,” she added.

Eriguel, 58, and his two aides were gunned down by at least nine men with assault rifles who stormed a Sangguniang Kabataan (youth council) meeting in the village of Capas here on May 12. Four days later, one of seven wounded in the attack died at a hospital.

Police arrested Felizardo Villanueva, 67, a losing candidate for Capas village chief, who pleaded not guilty during arraignment on May 25 at the Regional Trial Court here.

Eriguel’s widow, La Union Rep. Sandra Eriguel, described Villanueva as the “lookout of the gunmen.”

Security was tight during the funeral joined by 6,000 residents of Agoo and neighboring towns.

They accompanied Eriguel’s family to the cemetery although the hearse briefly stopped in front of the town hall.