Losing Pampanga mayoral candidate survives ambush

GUAGUA, Pampanga — A defeated mayoral candidate in Floridablanca town survived an ambush by two motorcycle-riding men here Thursday night, but two of his companions were killed.

Superintendent Federico Bulanday, municipal police chief, said defeated mayoral bet Anselmo Carlos, 50, his friend Rustico Fernando, 60, and driver Ramon Yuson, 40, were on their way to Manila after attending a meeting in Floridablanca, when they were attacked along the Gapan-San Fernando-Olongapo highway.

The ambushers’ motorcycle sidled up to Carlos’ green Nissan Safari and started firing.

Carlos, who was in the backseat, ducked as their vehicle was being peppered with bullets from long firearms. He recalled that he even told the driver to go faster to outpace their assailants, not knowing that his two companions had already been hit, mostly in the head.

When their van stopped, Carlos said the gunmen had already fled toward Floridablanca where they had apparently come from.

He said he alighted from the van and hid in the bushes as onlookers warned him that his assailants could still be around.

The villagers, however, refused to assist him in contacting the police, he said. He later persuaded a jeepney driver to take him to the police station here to report the ambush.

Carlos discounted politics as motive for the ambush, saying he has not had personal enemies since he ran for mayor.

He said the ambush could have something to do with his involvement in a land dispute in Barangays Consuelo and Sta. Maria in Floridablanca.

Carlos is the lead counsel of farmers in an agrarian reform case over huge tracts of land in the two barangays.