Tri-agency task force to probe Ilocos ambush-slay

VIGAN CITY, Ilocos Sur — Authorities laid plans yesterday for the creation of a tri-agency task force that will investigate Thursday’s ambush-killing of the provincial auditor and his driver in Bantay town, as the local police appeared to be facing a blank wall in their probe.

This developed as Dr. Pablo Quedado, medico-legal officer of the government-run Gabriela Silang General Hospital, took note of the gravity of the gunshot wounds inflicted on lawyer Agustin Chan Jr. and his driver, Alex Recacho.

Quedado told The STAR that Chan took two gunshots in the head and a third one in the abdomen, which ruptured his liver and intestines. Any of the three shots was fatal, he said. The auditor also had bullet wounds in the left arm, left leg and buttock.

Recacho, on the other hand, had a lone gunshot wound in the head but the impact was strong enough to dislodge the brain out of his skull. Police said this was so because he was shot at close range when the killers were overtaking their vehicle.

Superintendent Rogelio Baysic, assistant director for operations of the Ilocos Sur police, said the task force, to be composed of personnel from the National Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the provincial police, was being formed to investigate the ambush-killing.

Eyewitness

Police were encountering difficulty in locating a supposed eyewitness to the slaying, who earlier provided descriptions of the killers and the license plate of the car they had used.

Probers found 35 empty M-16 Armalite shells at the ambush scene, an uninhabited area along the national highway in Bantay town.

Baysic said the witness, who claimed to be at the scene aboard his motorcycle, sent the information via a text message to a local newsman who, in turn, forwarded it to the police.

All the glass windows of Chan’s white Toyota service vehicle were shattered. Reports said the killers first opened fire from behind the car, and continued riddling the vehicle with bullets as they overtook it.

The slow pace of the investigation has given rise to speculations here that the ambush-slaying could have something to do with the plunder case against deposed President Joseph Estrada in the Sandiganbayan. Police authorities promised to look into this angle.

Chan testified before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee after former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson accused Estrada of pocketing P130 million in kickbacks from tobacco excise taxes for Ilocos Sur as well as payoffs from jueteng lords.

Chan took over as provincial auditor, after serving in Abra, in October last year just when Chavit was parting ways with Estrada and starting to make his exposé against the ousted president.

Chavit’s accusations led to the impeachment and subsequent downfall of Estrada.

The ambush-killing occurred just a day after Ilocos Sur folk marked with rallies the first anniversary of Chavit’s exposé.

Text message

Meanwhile, Evelyn Chan, the provincial auditor’s widow, told Bombo Radyo Vigan yesterday that her husband sent her a text message at 4:11 p.m. last Thursday, saying that he was on his way home to Baguio City and that he was about to board his car.

"I ‘texted’ him back complaining why he was late in going home, but he no longer replied," she said.

It was presumably after receiving his wife’s text message that Chan and his driver were ambushed. Police put the time of the ambush between 4:15 and 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

She said her husband was killed just as he was about to be transferred to another assignment.

"It was reshuffling time for auditors in the region. In fact, he could have been reassigned to another place earlier but the appointment of a new COA (Commission on Audit) director in the region stalled the reshuffle," she said.

She asked authorities to get justice for her slain husband whom she described to be "devoted" to his work.

She said she felt that her husband was safe in Ilocos Sur because one of her relatives is married to Milagros Singson, said to be a cousin of Chavit.

The Save Ilocos Sur Alliance (SISA), in a statement, condemned the killing and expressed apprehension that it "may be a warning to constituents of Ilocos Sur, and consequently an attempt at weakening their knees and blocking their resolve to fight off those who have made their province most corrupt."

Nestor Seguismundo, SISA president, urged authorities to act swiftly on the case and conduct a "fair and unprejudiced investigation and evidence-gathering...amid probable pressure from unseen hands." — With Myds Supnad