New lead crops up in Delano slay probe

The police are eyeing a new lead in the Bicol region in their investigation into the killing of congressional chief-of-staff Robert Delano, an official said yesterday.

Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit of the Quezon City Police District, said that while they are not completely abandoning the angle related to purported mining disputes in Compostela Valley, their focus has now shifted to another lead.

Mabanag revealed that a witness claimed to having seen a van lurking in the vicinity of Delano’s house in Barangay Kamuning several times days before the ambush.

“When we traced the licensed plates of the van with the LTO (Land Transportation Office), we found out that the vehicle is registered to an owner in the Bicol region,” Mabanag told reporters in an interview.

Delano, chief-of-staff of Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel “Wai Kurat” Zamora, was ambushed by three men who approached his vehicle as he was about to leave his house Wednesday last week.

Among the angles initially floated by investigators were the supposed conflicting mining interests in Compostela Valley and Delano’s “dealings in Congress as president of the association of chiefs-of-staff.”

Earlier, Mabanag said a stronger lead was the supposed mining issue and even noted that investigators would go to Davao to pursue the angle.

However, Mabanag yesterday admitted that there now appears to be no strong link between this angle and Delano’s killing.

Mabanag said that even Zamora had brushed off the angle linking the killing to the mining issue.

Mabanag said Zamora also cited an unsigned petition circulating in Congress seeking the removal of Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles as House Speaker. The move was allegedly led by Delano.

Even the cellular phones owned by the victim had not given police investigators strong clues to point to the perpetrators behind the killing, Mabanag said.