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Four unidentified armed men shot dead yesterday the police chief of Cabuyao, Laguna in front of his house in Sta. Rosa, also in Laguna.

Chief Inspector Jesus Kabigting, executive officer of the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) in Region 4-A, identified the victim as Superintendent Bernie Banalo.

Police said Banalo, 54, was feeding his dog in front of his house at the Panorama Subdivision in Barangay Dita, Sta. Rosa when four unidentified men armed with .45 caliber pistols
approached him and shot him at close range at around 6:30 a.m.

Banalo was rushed to the St. James Hospital in Sta. Rosa where he died an hour later while being treated for seven gunshot wounds on the face and body.

Kabigting said that after the incident, the suspects walked towards a squatter area along the railroad tracks in Barangay Bigaa, where they boarded a waiting pumpboat and fled towards Talim Island.

Police investigators told The STAR that Banalo was the third police chief of Cabuyao to be assassinated since 1986. Another police chief of Calamba, Laguna was also killed in 1991. All of the killings remain unsolved.

“Banalo was the fourth police official to be killed for still unknown reasons. Those killed earlier were Chief Inspector Emma Henry in 1986 and Superintendent Eldiberto Paglinawan in 2003, both chiefs of police of Cabuyao, Laguna, and a certain Senior Inspector Macaraeg, Calamba police chief, who was killed in 1991 also in Cabuyao town,” the source said.

Probers said another police officer, Inspector Tito Colinayo of the Calamba police station, was also killed in Cabuyao in 1989.

Probers are not discounting the possibility that the killing of Banalo was carried out by communist New People’s Army rebels.

“We are looking for possible connections (of rebels in the killings of police officials),” said the source, who cited the involvement of local police units in labor disputes between workers’ unions and the owners of multinational factories in the area.

Aside from the NPA angle, investigators are also looking into an old grudge as the motive for Banalo’s killing.

“We gathered that Banalo had a misunderstanding with two employees at the vice mayor’s office in Cabuyao the day before the assassination. The colonel reportedly has a sharp tongue. So we are also looking into it,” said the police official.

The police are also following up the connection to Banalo’s killing of the recent demolition of squatters’ shanties in a Philippine National Railway site and the dispute over the closure of a garbage dump in Cabuyao.

Police said Banalo served as the head of the police detachment assigned in Malacañang before his appointment as chief of police of Cabuyao. – With Arnell Ozaeta, Ed Amoroso. AFP