Yearender: Masterminds of Isabela mayor’s slay remain unknown

MANILA, Philippines - While all those who staged the ambush of Erlinda Domingo in January were arrested shortly after the killing, it is not clear up to now who ordered her death.

It happened just a few days before the start of the election period for the May midterm polls. The victim was a municipal mayor in Isabela but she was ambushed far away from her hometown – and very near the family home of President Aquino.

Domingo, then running for re-election as mayor of the coastal municipality of Maconacon, was shot in the head in front of Park Villa Apartelle at the corner of Examiner and Quezon Avenue in West Triangle, Quezon City on the night of Jan. 22.

Her driver-bodyguard, Bernard Plasos, ran after the killers but was shot and wounded in the right leg.

One of the suspects, Christian Pajenado, fled through nearby Times street and tried to hide at a construction site, running smack into the police contingent regularly positioned there to guard the President’s family house.

Pajenado then led law enforcers to the house of another suspect, Michael Domingo, in Barangay Commonwealth.

The two eventually brought policemen to the house of the alleged gunman, Marsibal Abduhadi, alias Bagwis, in Barangay Culiat, where his wife Mary Grace Malonas was arrested for possession of guns and ammunition and a plastic sachet containing marijuana fruiting tops and drug paraphernalia.

When the ambush happened, Chief Superintendent Richard Albano had barely warmed his seat as the new director of the Quezon City Police District.

But in less than 24 hours, Albano and his men got hold of three of the suspects. Another one was tagged in the killing – Ryan Santiago – and he surfaced after the case was filed against him before the prosecutor’s office. Because of this, he was released shortly after.

The killing happened on a Tuesday night and before the week was over – on a Friday night – Abduhadi, who was the alleged gunman in the ambush, was arrested in Barangay Culiat after it was encircled by hordes of policemen.

This prompted police authorities to say that all those allegedly present at the site of the killing had been accounted for.

But to this day, one question remains: Who was the mastermind in the killing of the lady mayor?

Since Domingo was running for re-election, there was much speculation that it could be politically motivated.

Citing accounts from the victim’s friends and family, Albano had said the mayor had received threats to her life before the killing, but apparently ignored these.

Rivals deny involvement

The slain mayor defeated Walter Abdul Villanueva and Royle Gordon Talosig in the mayoralty elections in 2010.

Talosig is the son of former Maconacon mayor Francisco Talosig, who was shot dead on May 20, 2009 in Tuguegarao City. Domingo was then Maconacon vice mayor and she assumed the post of mayor after the death of the elder Talosig, whose killers have not been identified.

Following the assassination, the younger Talosig had appealed to the public not to drag them into the case, saying the insinuation that their family had something to do in the killing was absurd.

Then Isabela police director Senior Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag had even said Villanueva had sent word denying any involvement in the ambush. Villanueva was supposed to be Domingo’s rival in the mayoralty election last May.

Targeting ‘Madam’

One of the suspects, Pajenado, had claimed they never knew that the target was going to be Domingo. 

In fact, in the statement he gave to the police, Pajenado claimed they were just told the attack was supposed to be targeted on a woman who was only referred to as “Madam.”

Pajenado told police they had several meetings before the actual ambush on the night of Jan. 22.

Police officials had hoped that the arrest of the alleged gunman would lead them to the mastermind, but Abduhadi did not spill the beans.

In fact when he was arrested, Abduhadi was incoherent and did not make any sense when he talked. This was because, as the police had explained, he was very high on drugs and his words were slurred.

And because of this, while those who staged the Jan. 22 ambush have been charged for the death of Domingo, the mastermind in the killing has yet to be brought to justice almost a year since it happened.