9th barangay exec killed in Caloocan

MANILA, Philippines - Another barangay kagawad was killed in Caloocan City Thursday afternoon, bringing to nine the number of barangay officials killed in a span of eight months. 

Barangay 166 councilman Joselito Cleofas was driving his motorcycle along Gen. Luis street in Kaybiga when he was shot by a man riding a motorcycle driven by an accomplice at around 6:25 p.m., according to city police chief Senior Superintendent Bartolome Bustamante.

Cleofas is the seventh kagawad slain since May last year and the latest after Barangay 8 kagawad Bebot Cruz was gunned down in October 2014. 

Two barangay chairmen were also assassinated during the same period, but no arrests were made even if Mayor Oscar Malapitan offered rewards and the images of some suspects were published.

Cleofas was on his way home from a cockpit when the two men followed him and shot him in front of the Sacred Heart Church, Bustamante said.

A security guard saw Cleofas lying on the pavement, blood oozing from a gunshot wound in the head, but could not tell who had attacked the victim. 

Cleofas was taken to the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. He was transferred to the MCU Hospital, where he died shortly before 10 p.m.

Bustamante said a cartridge from a .45 caliber pistol was recovered from the crime scene. Investigators will check footage taken by surveillance cameras near the scene of the attack, he added.

“We will be checking all the necessary angles as far as the motive is concerned. We are not ruling out that this killing is related to the victim’s activities as barangay official,” he said. 

Reward for killers’ arrest

Malapitan offered P100,000 for any information leading to the arrest of Cleofas’ killers. 

“We condemn in the strongest terms the killing of kagawad Cleofas. It is unfathomable why some people could plan this dastardly act against a soft-spoken, well-loved barangay official,” he said. 

Malapitan said Cleofas, who was on his last term as kagawad, was planning to run as barangay chairman in the coming election and had been endorsed by no less than the outgoing chairman.

Politics eyed

Bustamante said they are looking at politics as the “closest motivation for the killing but we are not discounting all other possibilities.” 

A source told The STAR that Cleofas was “a hands-down winner in the coming barangay elections because he was very popular and his constituents believe in him.”

“This, and his conceived friendship with Mayor Malapitan, could be the reason why he was killed,” he said.