Ilocos Sur dad slain

STA. MARIA, Ilocos Sur — Investigators still have no clues in the murder of a councilor here even as his partymates suspect that a hired killer did the job.

Councilor Larry Gapusan was felled by seven gunshot wounds, two in the head, one in the chest and four in the back, inflicted by a masked gunman inside his farm at about 8 a.m. last Friday.

A farmhand, who was with Gapusan during the incident, said the councilor had just entered the farm, fenced off with chicken wire, when he was gunned down.

Gapusan, a partymate of Vice Mayor Romulo Brillantes under the Bileg ti Ilocos, which is affiliated with the administration’s Lapian ng Masang Pilipino, was reportedly being groomed as the running mate of Brillantes who is allegedly seeking the mayorship next year. — Teddy Molina